Heart of Stone
by CamelotGirl
Summary: The events from Heart of Gold have far reaching consequences, both for the people on Deadwood, and the crew of Serenity.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

**A/ N** ~ This story was started ages ago under an old screen name, but, life being what it is, it fell by the way side. I found it recently in an old folder when I was reorganizing my computer files, pulled it out, wiped off the electronic dust, and decided to expand, re-post and finish it. Enjoy!

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**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter One**

As Caroline Burgess rode over the bleak, hot terrain towards the Heart of Gold she let her thoughts drift aimlessly with no attempt at control for the first time since the news of her husband's death. Ever since his men had ridden up to the house bearing the body and the news of what had happened she had been trying to stay sharply focused on whatever task had been at hand. But now she freely let her mind wander, thinking idly of memories of days past and speculation on days to come.

She unconsciously adjusted her white veil as the shining building rose on the horizon. From a distance it could have been a palace of polished silver encrusted with diamonds rather than a den of inequity that had recently been witness to a slew of killings. She found herself amused by the fact there was no clear road out to the whorehouse, just a thousand random horse trails made by the many customers, all taking different paths, but all heading for the same lusty goal. Caroline wondered what her husband had been thinking as he came along this same way, that last time. Had there been even a twinge of remorse, of doubt, of guilt? Perhaps even a _hint _of shame at the thought of what he had been planning? She sighed at her own foolishness. No, not a chance in hell. Too full of pride, of power, of his own absolute surety in his own righteousness for any qualms to bother him.

Not that she was free to judge, Caroline reminded herself. There had been no qualms on her part either, only anger. And jealously as well, but mostly anger. She had spent that morning pacing around, seeing that everything would be in order for her husband's return with the child. She ground her teeth in frustration. _How dare he?_ she seethed for the thousandth time, _How dare he throw something like that in my face?_ But she had been given no choice in the matter. Rance's word had been law, both in town and in his household.

So, after watching him and his lackeys depart early that morning, she had refused to let herself brood and so she occupied herself with minutely overseeing the final preparations for the Nursery, arranging the placement of all the new things Rance had ordered even before buying that wicked looking genetic assayer. Sitting on the horse now she smiled at the mental image of taking a blowtorch to the area of the house that had once held so many hopes and dreams when she had first decorated the Nursery with what had proved false anticipation years ago, superseded recently by Rance's grand Plan B for an heir.

She let herself indulge in the idea of watching the hand sewn teddy bears, and the newest (and most expensive) Play'N'Learn gadgets - those brightly colored toys promising to ensure mental stimulation - and the delicate blankets to keep the baby warm but not smothered, and the impossibly tiny outfits to parade the child around in, and the pastel painted changing table with all sorts of cupboards and shelves storing everything needed to keep a baby sanitary at all times, and the stroller to show the child off in, and the antique wooden cradle that had been in the Burgess family for generations - all going up in smoke.

She wouldn't, of course. Now she had several plans in mind both for the Nursery and its contents.

But that fateful morning she had just been sitting down to compose the christening invitations – _Mr. and Mrs. Rance L. Burgess invite you to come celebrate the christening of their son_ – when the men had come riding up to the house. She had braced herself to have the baby and all the insults it symbolized thrust in her face, plastered a complacent mask on her face, and rose to greet her husband.

Who never came.

Instead, a jumble of men, some bleeding, all looking extremely ashamed, came into the entry way, and, piecemeal, she got the story of the Battle of the Whores, and the subsequent deaths that had followed. She followed the crowd of men outside to where they showed her the bodies they had brought back, slung over horses like saddlebags, including the unmistakable sight of her husband's body slung over one of the geldings, never to smile or shout or sneer again.

On another horse was a girl, Chari, the one Caroline had seen sneaking in and out of the house like a thief in the night the past few months to deliver news about Petaline's pregnancy. Chari was sitting behind a man bleeding from his right shoulder. With a sulky expression on her face Chari had her hands pressed to the wound to try and stem the bleeding. The man, Dunstan, hopped off, whining about needing a doctor. Chari, her hands covered in blood, slid off and nervously tried to blend into the background. Thrusting all emotions aside, Caroline had begun brusquely giving orders.

She had pointed at one of the men who looked relatively unscathed. "Meyer, go into town and fetch Doc Peters. He should be awake and sober by now – or close enough to sew everyone up." The man nodded brusquely, got back on his horse and galloped off to fetch the aging medic who was just as well known for his drinking as he was for his doctoring skills.

"And you Perkins," she had ordered one of her husband's foremen, "get coffins for the bodies. Ling," she next turned to the household majordomo, "Those who have families, return the bodies to them and express our deepest condolences. And tell them that the Burgess estate will be providing generous severance packages. Also, if any of the widows or children needs work, tell them to apply to me and I will personally see to it they get jobs. Jackson, those without families, see to it they are buried in the town cemetery as soon as possible. And the rest of you, for my husband's body, gather wood and prepare a pyre." She had then pressed her lips firmly together as she thought, _I'm giving you a lovely send off, husband, as much noise and attention as you'd ever want. And then I'll see you scattered to the four winds, less substantial than smoke._

She had then reached into her dead husband's coat pocket and pulled out the set of keys that had never left his person. She rifled though them until she came to the small bronze one that went to the wine cellar with the passcode scancard to the parlor liquor cabinet attached. She addressed the group in general, "Tell everyone that I will be providing enough drinks for all assembled to honor my husband's memory tonight." She had added dryly, "I'm sure it will help ease the pain of all those who were lost today."

She had thought to herself that this was as good a way as any to get rid of some of the types of alcohol Rance had always insisted on buying. _Nouveau riche_ brands that he bought to impress the people he used as his social circle, with himself in the center. Certainly this would be as good a time as any to put the _huángjîn__ xiong mao niao_ 2510 Chateau de Xuanzang to the most good. She had always tried to convince Rance to buy the classier – and, in her opinion, better tasting, brands – but he had always chosen the more well known brands, the type new celebrities were seen using on the Cortex, rather than what the Old Society in the Core or on one of the more refined Border planets like Greenleaf or Persephone would use.

Either way, the men didn't notice. That night, with the entire staff, and most of the people from town and neighboring folk that Rance had mingled with, along with numerous hangers on, gathered outside the house for the impromptu funeral / party, and she had personally poured most of the drinks, but not drinking herself, calmly thanking people who offered condolences, careful to strike a balance so that she appeared sad, but resigned rather than devastated; she knew it was vital to keep everyone calm, to not let people start assigning blame or to get riled up.

The previous night her husband had gotten his ranch hands and quite a few others ready to charge into battle with his oratory; that night Caroline took upon herself to do the lunar opposite with her words; she dredged up from her memory a time or two when Rance had shown a human side, telling people anecdotes of nice things he had done, editing out any hypocrisy in the stories. She was running on automatic, set on hostess mode, seeing to it that everyone had food and drink, that the kitchen ran smoothly, and that everyone was having a pleasant time. She rounded up a few workers whom she knew could play passably well and set them to playing quiet, soothing music in the background while people drank and, taking their cue from her demeanor, talked quietly.

The Li's were there, and the O'Shea's, and the entirety of the Fa family, from little Jia in her pigtails to old Shan, halfway bent over his walking stick but still insisting he didn't need anyone's help. The Chen's and Zhang's had the grace not to look smug that their major rival in their social circle was dead, but the Dumont's looked slightly superior, with Mr. Dumont's smirk practically saying 'he-had-coming.'

Caroline sourly reflected that it was easy for him to judge – the Dumont's had four sons: Ravi, Pierre, Armand, and Jean, all there, all looking bored. The Madison boys came for the party – Charles already drunk – and the Singh triplets all expressed their condolences to her, voices cracking with age rather than emotion. Mr. Chou was there, as was Mrs. Wooster and her three daughters, Madeline, Florence, and Gwendoline, always eager for any social occasion, even a funeral.

The fact that all three daughters were still unmarried said a lot about the extent of their annoying traits – girls were still out numbered by about two to one on Deadwood, even now. Now matter how carefully colonizations were planned, the gender ratio always did seem to be tipped dramatically in one direction or another for a generation or two before either a settlement balanced out and prospered, or faltered and was abandoned. Deadwood's ratio being more men than women these past score of years certainly accounted for the founding and prosperity of that brothel.

Caroline kept a sharp ear out as she circulated, determined to quash even a whisper of more violence towards said brothel, but, despite the alcohol, everyone was in a relatively somber mood, especially with Caroline doing her best to infuse everyone with a business-as-usual mindset, and, with no leader rallying them to commit bloodshed, no one seemed inclined to carry it further. She made a mental note to personally visit the widows and stress that they would be taken care of.

The three musicians, two field hands quite good with guitars and a third playing passably well on a flute, managed to harmonize a slow and mournful tune as she calmly took one of the torches and lit her husband's pyre herself. Closing her eyes, she had recalled her childhood in Northanger, the second largest of the three main cities on Greenleaf, and thought back to what she remembered of church services. She remembered the sun shinning through the stained glass windows, two stories tall, showing both heaven and hell, as she had listened to the minister as he had recited a prayer over her mother's coffin. As her husband's pyre lit up, she recited in a clear, strong voice: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."

She continued the psalm, speaking of green pastures and still waters, of a god that would bring comfort to each and every soul, and lead men down the path of righteousness, and as she spoke she wondered why so many men felt the need to bring guns as they walked down that supposedly righteous path, straight into hell.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil," she said loudly to the now utterly silent crowd. As she went on with the prayer she thought of the Unification War, and all of the valleys filled with the righteous dead, and of that first battle graveyard on Greenleaf that had taken over the entirety of Gosford Park where she had played as a little girl. She recited of the promised good and mercy that would follow in the hereafter, and wondered if there were any good and mercy left in the 'verse.

"And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever," she finished, without a note of irony in her voice.

She then stood in the front of the pyre and watched it burn to the ground, her mind a cathedral of cold space where she mentally, and soon physically as the night wore on and everyone drifted off, stood alone, silently mourning the dreams of her youth. But she didn't cry. She had stopped crying a long time ago and had no intention to start up again, especially when she felt no need to.

The implications of what Rance's death really meant didn't fully hit her until the next morning. She had woken up at her usual time soon after sunrise. She was alone in their bed and for a brief moment she wondered irritably whose bed he was asleep in this time, and then she remembered that he was dead, and the full force of what that meant hit her like a physical blow, and she gave a quiet gasp.

All of the power Rance had held was hers for the taking – all she had to do was reach out and grab it before some other _da sha gua_ man did. She was free, free to do and say as she liked, with money and men to back up her decisions and no husband or father to slap her down. She practically leaped out of bed and was still pulling on her robe as she left the room and made her way downstairs to start giving everyone their orders for the day.

There were some changes she was going to make.

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Movement on the horizon now caught her eye and jolted her out of her recent memories as she rode up to the Heart of Gold. Someone had darted from the front of the whorehouse to the main door. No doubt she had been spotted. She wondered if they would meet her with guns as well. Somehow she couldn't work up any anxiety over that thought. Her emotions, mostly the lingering anger at all the insults her husband had forced her to endure, were currently acting as a shield against any thoughts of vulnerability.

She got to the house and paused for a moment on her horse. It seemed almost the entire staff of the Heart of Gold had assembled outside to see what the widow Burgess had come for. She took a long measuring glance at the bordello she had heard so much about but until now never seen. It was the dilapidated shack she had expected – a pile of cinderblocks and a few planks covered with a layer of cheap solar sheeting. She suppressed a smirk at the sight of the Buddha statue in the meager garden with one end of a clothesline tied to His praying hands - weatherworn but still serene as underwear flapped in the breeze next to Him.

Caroline dismounted in one smooth motion. Paying no attention to the many eyes watching her she calmly tied the reins to her mount, Firenze, to one of the riding posts in front. Then she smoothed her gown, made a slight adjustment to her riding habit, and approached the line of people standing in front of the brothel. She looked up and down the line. Most still wore a white veil or white shawl to show they were in mourning for the brothel keeper that Rance had shot. Quite a few of them wore fresh bandages. Clearly the fight had cost the Heart of Gold the same amount of injuries that it had brought Rance and his men. But none of them were holding a baby.

Caroline had never laid on eyes on Petaline before, but it seemed the girl was wisely staying inside while the rest found out why the very recently widowed Mrs. Burgess was there. "My condolences to all of you," she stated blandly, then stood motionless, waiting for one of them to respond before continuing.

A few in the line shifted nervously. "And to you as well," one of the girls finally said uneasily with reasonable politeness. The girl who had spoken was shorter than the rest, although she may have been trying to make up for some of that height in a rat's nest of black hair piled atop her head.

Caroline inclined her head graciously in acknowledgment, and then said, "I wish to speak with Petaline and to whoever is now in charge."

"Petaline's the new House Mother," said one of the boys. "We decided last night."

"Very well," said Caroline, inwardly calculating what this meant and how it could impact her plans, "I will speak with her now."

There was a ripple of voices as several people disagreed with this at once. She cut through their protests loudly, "I have come a long way today, alone and unarmed, and in full mourning, and wish only a few minutes of the girl's time." She surveyed the various stubborn and or disbelieving looks, sighed, and said, "I promise I will cause her no harm. I am _not_ my husband."

One of the oldest looking of the whores, a tall blonde with an assortment of spangles all over her short blue dress, stepped forward and said, "Well, a few minutes then."

Caroline gave a simple nod of thanks. _And now we shall see_, she thought, wondering which direction things were about to go in now.

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Caroline Burgess was ushered into a back room that was halfway between a parlor and an office. It was just as gaudy and dusty as the main room, a theme that probably ran throughout the décor of the whole house. She wasn't surprised. Obviously the whores had attempted to achieve a look of elegance and good taste, and had failed as much as a monkey would fail at refined manners at a tea party.

She swept herself onto the red couch, neatly arranging the folds of the silk dress around her. The woman who stood next to the doorway, clearly left as a guard while Petaline was fetched, glared at her. Caroline gave her an exasperated look. She was hardly going to be intimidated by a common whore. It would take a lot more than that to discourage her after having been married to Rance Burgess.

The young girl Petaline entered the room, holding a wrapped up bundle Caroline could only assume was the baby whom this entire hurricane of change centered around. She very barely repressed a snort of irritation.

Petaline sat down across from her after instructing the watcher to leave them alone and to shut the door, which surprised Caroline. She wondered if it was showing the other whores she was the leader, or showing Caroline they were equals and did not need people backing her to meet with the woman she had personally widowed. Perhaps a mixture of both.

Caroline surveyed the girl cooly. Still quite a lot of pregnancy fat, but other than that Petaline looked like she should still be someone's child, rather than a mother herself.

"Well, why did you want to see me, Mrs. Burgess?" Petaline asked without preamble, a mixture of curiosity and hostility in her tone.

"I will get straight to my point," said Caroline brusquely, "as soon as my husband learned of the DNA results of that…" she hesitated over what noun to use, "_child_," she said as diplomatically as she could, nodding at the bundle, "he rushed to his lawyer and changed his will. Not out of any suspicion of a need for this action, mind you, but merely as another chance to boast and brag about his…vitality. Something I am sure you are aware Rance was prone to do," she added, unable to stop herself from goading.

Petaline nodded slightly, but other than a slight coloring in her checks, refused to show any sign that the shot had hit any marks.

Caroline took a deep breath. "He made that baby in your arms heir to absolutely everything he owned, which is considerable holdings, with myself appointed as his legal guardian until he came of age. Basically, I am in charge of the Burgess estate until the child turns 18, when he will then inherit to use as he pleases."

"You can't have him, I don't care what some gorram piece a paper says-" the girl began babbling, clutching onto her baby.

"I don't _want_ him," snapped Caroline angrily. Then she made herself take another deep breath to calm down. She would not play the villain! Despite the fact, a cruel voice whispered in her head, that she genuinely did not want the baby and was probably the only person involved who did not care at all about this child. Hated him, to be honest, for what he symbolized.

"Well, what _do_ ya want?" asked the girl, sounding exasperated.

"I'll be crudely blunt – if some whore's bastard is going to come into that kind of inheritance, I want to help manage his upbringing to ensure that he is worthy of it."

"Why do you care? Why don't you just take the money and go back to the Core? Leave us and the rest of the dirt you so obviously despise behind you?" Petaline sneered at her.

Caroline sneered back, "Ever lived on a Core planet? I'd be considered a lowly country bumpkin. A nobody. And worse, the rumors and whispers about what happened here would soon follow me. I would be looked down or out right shunned from whatever social circles I _could_ have managed to get into. When alls said and sifted, I'd much rather rule the social circle here on this little moon." She gave Petaline a parody of her usual charming society smile.

Petaline was quiet, looking genuinely surprised at the idea of Caroline Burgess being called a country bumpkin.

Caroline paused, wondering how much more to tell the girl. And she really was still just a girl, thought Caroline cynically. She sensed the backbone that let Petaline talk back to her was a result of the baby. Petaline had never tried to play any power games with Rance. Then again, those games hadn't helped Chari. Perhaps Petaline was smarter than she looked. Caroline decided speaking openly now would get the best results.

"That bullet you put in my husband's brain did a lot more than protect your baby from abduction," pointed out Caroline. "It has shifted the balance of power dramatically. Everything's been thrown up in the air. I want to make sure everything is in place for the new management before the dust clears. I plan on using this turn of events as a fresh start to make new long range plans for this moon. Different from the way my husband was running this settlement."

"And where does my son come into this plan of yours?" Petaline asked, still hostile and suspicious, her hold on the baby still nervously tight.

"Job security, plain and simple. Everyone who worked for my late husband, which is to say, a large percentage of this moon's population, breathes easier at the thought of a son and heir growing up being groomed to take over this place when he comes of age. No need to worry about property being split up and sold to conglomerates or Alliance and end up costing everyone their way of living." Caroline silently congratulated herself at what an effective tool the simple truth could be. Living with first her father and then her husband, she was so used to doubletalk that the idea of actually speaking the truth out loud was a refreshingly new experience.

"And how would you plan on educating him?" Petaline sounded much less hostile now; still suspicious, but willing to hear Caroline out.

"I'll pay for tutors to come here at first, to his _home_," she gave the tiniest stress to the word, giving a small nod in the direction of the door, indicating the Heart of Gold in general, knowing what this girl needed to hear right now was that no one was going to take her baby, "and then," Caroline went on gently, "when he is grown old enough to leave your sight for a bit, I'll arrange for him to go off world, hopefully as near the Core as can be arranged, for some formalized schooling at the very best of schools, so he can learn more of the 'verse." Caroline could tell she'd hit jackpot at the mention of education. Petaline's face lost its mulish set and became rather soft as she looked down at her son.

"Well," hesitated Petaline, "when he's old enough he _should_ go to school, but for right now-"

"For right now you are his mother and he is yours to raise."

Petaline looked at her sharply, as if checking for sarcasm.

"I am _not_ my husband," Caroline said as forcefully as she had said earlier.

"Glad to hear it," snapped Petaline angrily, "'cause he sure was a _qingwa cao de_ _liumang_."

Caroline was honestly shocked for a moment to hear such language coming from the little girl's mouth – for about two seconds – then she burst out laughing. "He was at that," she gasped when she finally managed to get herself back under control.

The baby suddenly started crying. "Oh, hush baby," crooned Petaline, rocking him back and forth. "Don't fret, _xingan_, the lady will be going soon." She shot Caroline a significant look.

Caroline ignored the heavy hint to leave. She had a better view of the child now and was somewhat relieved that it wasn't a spitting image of Rance. "What have you decided to name him?" she asked, pushing aside an unacknowledged feeling of jealously.

"Jonah," said Petaline promptly.

_Delivered safe from the belly of a whale_, thought Caroline sardonically, but all she said out loud was, "And when will the christening ceremony be?"

"Uhhh, I haven't thought about that yet," admitted Petaline, caught off guard.

_I'll bet there's a lot you haven't thought about yet, little girl_, thought Caroline scornfully. Out loud she said, "Well, since I no longer have a use for them, as an early christening present I will send over all of the baby things Rance had arranged to be shipped in – on one condition," she added just as she saw Petaline's eyes light up at the prospect of things she hadn't even begun to suspect she would need for the caretaking of her baby.

"What?" she asked suspiciously.

"You pick the godfather and I pick the godmother."

Petaline paused, obviously looking for some sort of trap. "Well… ok," she agreed slowly.

"Good, I will be godmother."

"Um… ok?" said Petaline, sounding very unsure of where this was going.

"_Hen hao_," said Caroline, glad the girl wasn't going contest every single thing she said. "I'll come back in a few days with the baby's things and once the date for the christening is set we can start planning it."

"I'll tell the girls to expect to see you and some folk coming back here soon," said Petaline, awkwardly firm, assuming the role of leader like she was putting on an oversized coat.

"Good," said Caroline, and got up.

"Chari…" Petaline began hesitantly.

"Is now indentured to me," said Caroline flatly.

"A bond slave? Why would she agree to that?"

"She was… _persuaded_," said Caroline darkly, "that it was the best course for her. I don't _hire_ spies and traitors. They are too untrustworthy." Caroline looked at Petaline straight on and decided to thoroughly test the girl's decision to throw the little spy out. "_Property_ is much easier to control," she said cooly.

Petaline didn't flinch.

"Oh, and here," Caroline causally laid a heavy silk pouch on the table. "A birthday gift to be used as you like on this child's home."

Petaline tipped it upside down and a pile of platinum cash landed on the table, a shining heap of solvency. Petaline's eyes went wide. "That must be-"

"About what I figured was three months income for the Heart of Gold," finished Caroline. Petaline looked at her questioningly. "I've banned all of my employ from visiting Heart of Gold for the next 90 days. I thought that would be best for everyone. It will give everyone a… well, let us call it a cooling off period." And with that she gracefully exited the room.

As she got back on her horse, she considered stopping by the fresh grave of the brothel keeper – Nandi, that was her name, and offering a brief prayer for the dead, but she decided against it, suspecting the girls at the Heart of Gold might mistake her honest respect for the only person she had ever seen stand up to Rance as a mere mocking tribute, and come after _her_ with guns this time. As she rode back towards town she wondered if it was possible to have the kind of courage this Nandi had obviously had and still come out alive.

She very much doubted it.

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When she got back home she immediately gave orders to the household staff that the entire contents of the Nursery were to be packed up and be made ready to be moved over to the Heart of Gold. She received a few brief startled looks from the staff but no one made any objections. She then sat down at her desk in the morning room. She rifled through a few papers, but suddenly she stopped. Caroline had never liked the morning room; it wasn't in the best positioning for morning light, but Rance had never let her move the room because he had always insisted he needed the section of the house that got the best morning sunlight for receiving visitors; besides, he had always told her patronizingly, it really was best for her to have the privacy he was sure she needed in the back of the house, away from everything and secluded rather than being consistently interrupted by this and that nearer the front door.

Caroline allowed herself a small smirk as she rang the bell for one of the house servants, Teyu, a middle aged woman from Ita. Teyu was one of the thousands who had been forced to flee that moon when Ita's terraforming went haywire and the whole moon flooded, killing more than a quarter of the population and leaving the rest to immigrate and find whatever shelter and work they could around the Rim, despite lofty promises of aid from the Alliance that had never quite materialized. Now there were only the vultures circling – salvagers seeking what drowned goods they could find and selling them for scrap. Teyu had landed on Deadwood with most of her meager belongings still damp, and grateful to be alive after a harrowing near drowning. When Caroline asked her soon after she had started working for the Burgess's if she was settling in all right, Teyu had told her she never wanted to see a body of water largest than a bathing tub again, and was happy that Deadwood fit the bill.

Caroline now told Teyu to have all of the office things packed up so they could be moved to Rance's study. That room was, after all, was just sitting there, empty; those large windows, that sleek wooden paneling, the tall shelves and the heavy mahogany desk would never again be needed by Rance. "And send the new girl – Chari – to see me there," she called over her shoulder as she briskly made her way down the hall to her new domain.

Caroline drew out Rance's key ring and unlocked the door and stood on the threshold, surveying her new territory, savoring the moment. Rance had favored a traditional style of the Yansong School of interior decorating; she pursed her lips, the basic architecture was well enough, but the feng shui was all wrong in here. She walked around the study, making mental notes of what to keep, what to discard, what to move, and what she would need to buy. She then sat down in Rance's heavy mahogany chair, and began shuffling through the things in his desk, considering what to keep and what to discard. Several minutes later she was interrupted from her examination by a knock on the already open door.

"You sent for me, Mrs. Burgess?"

Caroline looked up from her examination of a stack of Rance's contacts and saw Chari standing awkwardly in the doorway.

Caroline blandly said, "Come in and shut the door behind you." As Chari did so, Caroline blatantly looked the girl up and down; she had told her housekeeper to make sure Chari got some decent working clothes, rather than that ridiculously skimpy – and blood spattered – outfit she had shown up in. Her hair was still done up in its fancy bouffant with the feathered headband, but she was now wearing a dull brown skirt that fell down past her knees and a plain, red, short sleeved, button up shirt. The skirt looked slightly too small and the shirt slightly too big – the only two sizes borrowed clothes ever came in. Caroline made a mental note to make sure the girl had a decent fitted working wardrobe provided for her.

Chari stood in front of her nervously, waiting to see why she had been summoned. Caroline started by sternly telling her, "In future, you will refer to me as Madam, is that clear?"

"Yes, Madam," the girl gulped hastily.

"So Chari," she asked with patently fake solicitousness, "We haven't had a chance to really talk yet. Tell me, how are you settling in here?"

"Madam, I only wanted to help your husband-" Chari began to stammer, trying vainly to justify her actions and to avoid censure.

"Don't lie!" Caroline snapped, her emotions suddenly flaring to the surface. She took a deep breath to get back under control and went on coldly, "What you _wanted_ was to not only save your own rutting neck but to gamble on it too. Never bet more than you have, girl. Next time it might cost you more than a ten year indenture contract."

"You told me you'd have me dumped in the middle of the Carmine Desert if I didn't sign that gorram bond!" protested Chari.

Caroline surveyed her grimly. Clearly the girl still needed breaking in. "I was just making your options clear to you. _My_ money or _your_ life. It's not a bad arrangement, girl, you've got a guaranteed position in my household for the next ten years, and at the end of it, I hand over your wages and you're free to go wherever in the 'verse you want. Now, do you understand your duties?

Chari sighed and said, "Assist the cook."

"Assist the cook, what?" Caroline asked sharply.

"Assist the cook, Madam," she said in a tone somewhere in between meek and sulking.

Caroline drew a piece of paper out from her own sheath of paperwork. "This is a reminder list of the terms of your bond. Pay strict attention to the _Don't_ list. And comb your hair out and put it in a braid or I will cut it off for you," she ordered sharply.

She sent Chari back to the kitchen and turned her attention back to re-arranging her husband's study to fit her needs. She summoned Teyu and told her to lay a fire in the study's fireplace, despite the day's heat, so she could personally burn Rance's pornography collection. She swept most of his useless brick-a-brack into a box, but hesitated over a lump of silver quartz. It was a souvenir from Fenris. Caroline had met Rance on Fenris, Greenleaf's smallest moon. She and her father had been visiting her father's business interests on Fenris where Rance had been working as an overseer at one of the moon's main mining companies.

Her father, like many of the settlers on Greenleaf, had worked mainly in the pharmaceutical business, drawing on the rich botanical supplies in the planet's rainforests to be processed into a profitable product in the planet's cities. Greenleaf's moons provided much in what was needed in non-botanical supplies, such as the sand and limestone needed to make the thousands of square acres of glass needed in test tubes and Petri Harmonia, Greenleaf's second to largest moon, most of the population was employed in glass production, smelting the minerals extracted from Fenris and Avalon.

Growing up around the pharmaceutical business that ran Greenleaf she had learned early on that there was no money to be made in always following the rules, nor would it have done any moral good to stick rigidly to the letter of the law. Small minded folks - the grasshoppers, her father had called them - who thought only of today and not of tomorrow didn't see the need for things like human testing. After all, they were all volunteers, it wasn't like they were forced to sign up for clinical tests, and those that lived were always compensated, and those that died always provided important test result information that would, down the line, provide the key to creating drugs that could save millions, even billions, of lives. One life in exchange for the population of a Core planet like Sihnon? Or Ariel? Or a prospering Border world like Persephone? Or the total population of dozens of the smaller Border worlds put together? Or hundreds of the Rim colonies? Who in their right mind would say one life wasn't worth that?

******************************************************************

A week after speaking with Petaline, Caroline had the entirety of the Nursery packed up and ready to go. She personally escorted the delivery of the baby things to the Heart of Gold, the wagon full to the gills with her christening gift. All of the girls oohh-ed and ahhh-ed over the crates of toys, clothes, blankets, bottles, diapers, and furniture. As she had calculated, she saw this peace offering was going to make her presence much more tolerable.

"May we speak?" Caroline asked Petaline. Petaline nodded, handing over Jonah to one of the little blondes. Caroline and Petaline went back into the same office they had met in before. Petaline sent one the other girls to get tea, and when the two women sat down to the tea service, they looked almost civilized, smiling hard and brittle, but polite, smiles at each other over their delicate teacups. It was rumored Nandi had come all the way out from the Core. If so, Caroline suspected the fine boned tea set had once been hers.

"Thank you for the baby things, Mrs. Burgess," said Petaline, most of the earlier hostility gone.

"Think nothing of it," Caroline said with a little gracious nod. "I certainly had no use for them," she added dryly. Before Petaline could respond she jumped right in with, "I've been making inquiries about getting a preacher out here – both for the christening and to get someone out here permanent like rather than the occasional itinerant shepherd we get strolling on through here every six months or so. I'd like to see an actual church set up here on Deadwood."

Petaline blinked in surprised. "Have you heard anything back?" she asked curiously.

"I've actually had a reply from a young man new to the cloth. He's from Beaumonde and he sounds eager to bring the Word out to the edge of the 'verse. He'll still need to settle his affairs at his old home, ready his belongings and book transport out here, but he should be here within a few months. In the meantime, I'm going to get my men started on building a church for the man to preach in. We can probably start planning on having your son's christening in a real church with a permanent minister on Landing Day."

"Just like that?" Petaline snapped her fingers. She gave Caroline a look of disbelief. "You send a wave and - poof - we got a preacher and a church?"

Caroline chuckled coldly. "Yes and no. There is going to be some paperwork in getting the minister out here and I'll either have to find a damned good foreman or be out there myself, day in, day out, if I want the men to get this church built well and on time, but, yes, taking the reigns of my husband's accounts means quite a lot of money can now be redirected into building up this moon instead of wasting it as he did on useless technological frivolities. Speaking of which - my husband's skimmer. Where is it?"

"We left it where it crashed," Petaline shrugged. "We ain't got no need of it."

"I don't think I'll need it that much myself, but it might come in handy. Where did it crash?"

*******************************************************************

Following the directions from one of the girls, the men who had loaded and unloaded the Nursery contents found Rance's skimmer not far from the Heart of Gold. As they set about righting and preparing the skimmer for towing, Caroline circled around watching. Her foot kicked something in the rocky sand – looking down she saw it was the gun Rance had been so proud of. She picked it up, shock off the sand, and gave a nearby bush an experimental shot. The gun made a desperate whirring noise, the side read-out blinked the message 'low battery', and then it died completely, and she was left holding a paperweight that had cost 1,300 platinum. "Oh Rance, you and your toys," she sighed in exasperation.

Once the skimmer was ready to be towed behind the wagon back to town she gave it a once over, trying to judge how banged up it was. She idly ran a hand over the sheepskin that lined his seat in the skimmer and reflected on how like him it had been to insist on shipping the latest technology out here, trying to build a mini-Core here on Deadwood, ignoring the fact people had to adapt. She looked down at the useless gun in her hand – adapt… or die out.

********************************************************************

As Caroline and her workers retrieved the skimmer, Petaline watched them from the front of Heart of Gold thoughtfully, one hand shading her eyes as she watched them set off. She handed Jonah off to Lucy and told her she had to make a call. "I'm going to get in touch with _Serenity_."

********************************************************************

**Transaltions**

**Mandarin:**

_huángjîn__ xiong mao niao_– golden panda piss

_da sha gua_ – idiot

_Hen hao _– very good

_qingwa cao de_ _liumang _– frog-humping son of a b*tch

**French:**

_nouveau riche – _newly wealthy and new to the upper class


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

All credit for the Silk Road concept goes to LJC, as seen in her story That Old Yeh Shen Story

Read her firefly fics – all are very well written, great reads, and are made of awesome!

The travel posters mentioned are based on posters at the Black Market Beagles site.

**********************************************************************

**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Two**

Simon and Kaylee were about to have a Moment - Kaylee was willing to bet cold, hard platinum on it. Kaylee was sure that this time, for sure, Simon was finally going to make a move. A while back she had vowed to herself that as much as she wanted to throw Simon up against the bulkhead wall and have her horny way with him, she was going to make him make the first move. She liked him too much to not be sure that he wanted this too.

They were in the infirmary, practically nose to nose, as a conversation where Kaylee had been trying to comfort him on his lack of progress with his sister had become something else entirely once he had expressed the fact he was grateful he had stumbled on a ship with someone like Kaylee on it to remind him of the good in the verse.

"Kaylee…" he began, trying to put into language the depth of his feeling.

"Yeah, me too," she said dreamily, interrupting him before he could mess up the moment with some stumbling speech of ill chosen words, willing him with all of her mind for him to lean forward and kiss her.

"You… I never… I feel so… like I'm –ARHGH!" He ended the sentence on a screech of surprise. "Floating!" he squawked inelegantly.

Kaylee looked down. Their now intertwined legs were hovering a good three feet above the floor of the infirmary and numerous loose bits of surgical tools and supplies were bobbing about the room in mid-air in orbit around them.

"_Ai yah Tien ah_," swore Kaylee mildly with a sigh of exasperation. "I knew that supplier must have been lying 'bout the age of those wires, the price he was offering." She reluctantly untangled herself from Simon and began pushing herself off the countertops and walls to help him gather up the bits and pieces of the infirmary that hadn't been put away. "Remind me never to use that vendor again, that _liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze_," she grumbled to Simon, wondering, as she felt her hair fan out around her, if there were any rubber bands floating (literally) around nearby.

"_Duhn ruhn_," agreed Simon distractedly as he chased unsuccessfully after his journal and light-pen, looking extremely unnerved by the lack of gravity.

"Here, ya gotta leverage off of something else," Kaylee explained, holding her hand out to show how two people could move easier than one without gravity. She bit her lips at the thought of the kind of experiments two people could do while floating along without any weight to get in the way.

"**KAYLEE!**" hollered the captain from somewhere in the near vicinity.

"Uhh, I think the grav-boast mighta short-circuited, Cap'n!" she called back, slamming a mental lid on any thoughts of getting up to something naughty.

"Oh really?!" he hollered back, his voice coming closer. "You think? It might have? Well! Now there's a _stunning_ conclusion," fumed Captain Malcolm Reynolds sarcastically as he attempted to storm into the room. As he was unable to walk, but forced to do some creative mid-air butterfly strokes with the help of the door frame, his entrance was less than impressive.

"I'm on it," she said hastily.

"I… uh… I better check on River," said Simon awkwardly as he captured a floating syringe and packet of disposable gloves. "Losing the gravity might have scared her."

"Oh no worries on that score, I passed her on the way here," said Captain Reynolds, still fuming somewhat. "She's in the middle of the cargo bay giving as fine an exhibition as you could ask for on classical anti-grav ballet, and trying to entice Jayne to join in a _pas-de-deux_ and play Romeo to her Juliet."

Kaylee sniggered at the idea of Jayne playing Romeo as she launched herself out the door and towards the engine room.

"Simon," said the captain, snapping the good doctor out of an appalled reverie of the thought of Jayne playing Romeo in any context whatsoever, "a wave came in when the grav shorted, come in for ya from, ah," he hesitated, "from that Miss Petaline back at the, uh, back where's she from." Mal was clearly uncomfortable referring anything to do with Nandi's death, still achingly fresh. He cleared his throat self consciously. "She wants to ask you something about the baby. You can take it in the cockpit. Wash has her on screen now." Mal edged off, covering up his awkwardness by muttering to himself about an apparent shortage of doctors in the 'verse.

Simon pulled himself along the stair handrails, smiling as he saw River laughing and dancing in the cargo bay, as graceful as a prima ballerina taking the stage at the New Paris Opera House. River performed a perfectly executed _grand jeté sans phys_ by launching herself from Jayne's shoulders, who ignored her as he chased after the parts of the gun he had been cleaning when the gravity went off.

When Simon got to the top of the stairs he saw to his right Book and Inara were in the galley, Inara still somehow managing to look very controlled, despite the circumstances, and calmly skimming across the hovering table and collecting a few floating plates and cups, while Book was floating in the air in a sitting position, examining a floating collection of liquid drops and the pitcher they had escaped from with a thoughtful look on his face, as if he was trying to find the answer to a theological problem.

As Simon turned left and launched himself from wall to wall to make his way from the hallway to the cockpit he could clearly hear Mal and Kaylee shouting at each other from the engine room down the other end of the ship. The brother and sister-like captain and engineer were playing the blame game; from the echoing sound of Kaylee's voice it sounded like she was shouting insults about his stinginess from underneath the engine while the captain accused her of letting his ship turn into a gorram shock up bottle of _Feichang-Cola_.

Simon hesitated, wondering if Kaylee needed a hand, but she was clearly giving as good as she got, and Inara and Book both seemed to be ignoring the argument, so he continued on to the cockpit, where he found Wash was keeping Petaline entertained as they waited for Simon to make his way up without gravity: "-big as my fist!" he was telling the little face on the screen. "Hand to God! The whole beach was covered with 'em. So we got the blankets and- oh hey Simon," his head craned up to give him a friendly smile as Simon finally made the last few feet to the console. Simon marveled at how taking away a little thing like friction and suddenly a walk that should have taken about thirty seconds suddenly become a good ten minute task.

"Well, here's the doc," he told Petaline. "Simon, I'll just hand things over to you," he said as he unstrapped the buckles that were keeping him in his chair. He looked back at Petaline. "Long story short – we ate them." On the screen Petaline giggled.

Floating up, Wash made a comic bow with his hands, relinquishing his seat so Simon could have a better view of his first genealogical patient and talk to her without worrying about his balance. Wash made his way to the stairs, looking curious to find out how the rest of the crew was doing. Mal could be heard yelling at everyone in the vicinity to look for the magnetized boots, insisting that some _buhn dahn_ must have moved them since they weren't where _he_ had carefully left them.

Simon managed to half float, half crawl into the chair and managed to get the buckles in place as he told Petaline his apologies for the delay, explaining they were experiencing a few technically difficulties on board, feeling almost, but not quite, as if he was walking into a waiting room on Osiris and apologizing to a patient for a delay for an examine due to some sort of emergency in the OR.

He smiled reassuringly at the screen as he got the last buckle clicked into place. "How is the baby?" he asked, feeling, despite everything, on slightly surer ground.

She smiled broadly. "Jonah is doing just fine. All the girls insist on helping when he's awake, day or night, and he sleeps right after he eats, which is a lot." She smiled a little ruefully, wincing slightly due to what Simon clinically assessed to be sore breasts from the breastfeeding.

"That sounds good," said Simon, smiling with her. "Is he-" he started to ask about the baby's sleep schedule when the intercom crackled to life and Kaylee's voice boomed across the ship's speakers: "Everyone hold on to something!" Despite being strapped into the seat, Simon braced himself and a few seconds later he felt a nauseating sensation of his full weight returning to him. There was the sound of pings and thuds and a few crashes across the ship as everything came back down. There was a string of colorful curses from various voices followed by Kaylee hollering exasperatedly: "I _told_ ya to hang on."

There was more yelling at that, and Kaylee hollering back some sort of engineering jargon about why it was impossible to turn gravity back on slowly, but Simon turned back to the screen, tuning out the rest of the crew.

He smiled sourly at Petaline, "It's just another normal day for us here onboard _Serenity_," he told her.

"Is everyone all right there?" she asked, her forehead creasing anxiously.

"We've survived worse," said Simon ruefully.

There was a sound of running feet behind him and Kaylee came bouncing into the cabin. "Cap'n and Jayne are moaning and wailing about their little bruises and want to know where you stowed the Insta-Ice-Paks," she said cheerfully.

"Ok," said Simon, reaching to unbuckle himself from the seat. He turned back to the screen, "Anything else I can help you with Petaline?" he asked kindly.

"Well Dr. Tam," said Petaline nervously, "I was wondering…" she gulped and then rushed onwards, "would you be Jonah's godfather?"

The request completely threw Simon for a loop. As he was stammering something along the lines of he had never been a godfather before and wasn't sure he was qualified, Kaylee cooed, "Aw, how sweet! That's even nicer than hamsters, Simon!"

Simon finally managed to say that he was honored and he humbly thanked her for her kind thoughts, but the direction of his current transportation wasn't up to him and he wasn't sure when he might be able to arrange coming back-

"Your captain does cargo transport, don't he?" Petaline asked hopefully.

"Uh, ostensibly, yes."

"Well, goods don't get run out this way in any sort of regular schedule, and I was wondering if I could hire him to pick up some things I'm planning on ordering."

"Uh, I'll have to speak to the captain-"

"Speak to the captain about what?" grumped Mal, coming into the cockpit with a dramatic limp, clutching one his thighs from where the engine had bruised him coming down.

"Captain Reynolds, we want to hire you to bring in some goods to Heart a' Gold," called out Petaline.

"What kind of goods?" he asked, coming over to the screen and doing his best to shift into business mode.

"Just a list of stuff we need that we can't get out here. We don't got enough to hire you to run transport regular like, but we can pay enough for a one time run of a bunch of things we been needing for a while and some things I'm gonna need for Jonah. The christening's going to be on Landing Day, do you think you could schedule the drop off for then?"

Landing Day celebrated the day the original colonists arrived in the 'verse from Earth-that-Was and landed on Londinium, the first planet to be colonized. The holiday was generally celebrated with outdoor picnics and hanging paper lanterns in the shape of rocket ships. The cities favored having parades and speeches while the more rural areas tended to have singing and dancing. Now that the Alliance was trying to get the whole of the populated 'verse to stick to an official calendar of approved holidays, many people out in the Border and Rim tended to use Landing Day as an excuse to celebrate their own planets and moons' Landing Days that had gotten swept aside by the new order in the name of efficiency.

"How much stuff would we be picking up? And where?" asked Mal, all business, obviously in no mood to discuss holidays, official or otherwise.

"We haven't placed the order yet. We figured we could get it from the nearest big port you'd be near - cut down on fuel costs that way."

Mal rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "We won't be but a stone's throw away from Ezra when we finish our current job." Mal was referring to the boxes of industrial strength rock cutting blades in the cargo hold headed for the mining colony of Balthazar on Highgate. "Anything money can buy available on Ezra – well, everything except bacon, of course. Tell you what, gimme your list and I'll purchase and deliver 'em for you. I'm sure you know as well as I do that being there in person makes the bargaining go better for the buyer."

Her face broke into a wide smile. "I surely do captain. I'll send a text wave of the whole list soon as I double check with the girls that we got everything written down that's needing."

"What's your rough estimate on the cost?"

She frowned delicately. "I've been running the numbers. I think we're looking at about 450 credits, plus whatever your shipping and handling fees are."

"I'll get the goods for you for 10% less," promised Mal rashly, "and I'll throw in the 15% Pretty Mama discount on the standard two district transport fee. Let me know the list and we'll set the time frame."

She smiled brightly. "_Xie-xie, juéshì_," she said, and logged off.

"Oh, you old softie," said Kaylee, cooing like she just saw a puppy wiggle its way into a combat boot.

"_Biz yu_," ordered Mal, sounding more like an annoyed older brother than an authoritative captain. "Come on, both of ya, there's a lot of stuff that needs tidying after our little free for all there."

*****************************************************

The rest of the trip to Highgate was fairly uneventful, mostly filled with a long clean up of all the things that had to be cleaned, put away, rearranged, repaired, mopped up, swept up or thrown away after the brief period of zero-g. Jayne mourned a dent in one of his guns – Lucy – as if his first born child had been killed. Mal threatened him with a month's septic-vac duty if he didn't stop whining.

The mining company they were delivering to had just hit a new deposit of copper and were eager to put the new rock cutters to work, so the exchange took place with a minimum fuss. Mal was then able to quietly negotiate with one of the workers to take a shipment of handmade copper kitchenware and sell at a handsome price off world under the radar of the company that officially handled all the selling of goods that came from Balthazar.

In the few hours they were at the mining colony there was one brief panic, most of it done by the doctor, when River went missing. It turned out River had picked up the local Balthazar drawl so well as to pass for a native and gotten herself invited to a local clan's family reunion after she spun an impressive story about being someone's father's sister's husband's sister's cousin's daughter. Simon found her at a picnic table, pouring lemonade and chatting with a group of metal workers about Earth-That-Was mythology about smith gods.

*****************************************************

That night when the whole crew was assembled around the dining table, Mal pushed back his plate of mostly eaten molded protein and announced, "As some of you already know, we got hired to do a grocery run. We'll be heading for Ezra next, where we'll be doing some shopping. Miss Petaline has invited us to her baby's christening on Landing Day, and she's wired us the funds to buy and deliver some supplies at the same time. We'll off load on Ezra the goods we picked up on Balthazar, get a few things for _Serenity_, and maybe line up a job or two while we get the things for Petaline and stow 'em on board till we swing back to Deadwood for the drop."

"We hold onto the cargo for almost three months?" asked Wash, perplexed.

"It wouldn't hurt to have some completely legitimate goods on board," drawled Mal, " 'case we get any kind of surprise inspection. I can't see how things like diapers and kid outfits could stir any trouble."

"Baby clothes!" said Kaylee, excitedly clasping her hands together.

"She text-waved us a _specific_ list," said Mal warningly. "When we land on Ezra I'll be sending those of you best at bargaining off to get the various odds and ends needed. Remember, the more you can save on price means the more for our cut. And Kaylee, she specifically mentioned supplies for _making_ clothes. Babies grow; any teeny tiny expensive outfit you fall in love with – remember, the kid'll probably outgrow it before we get back."

"Aw, I know that, Cap'n," said Kaylee good naturedly.

"Glad to hear it," he said, getting up and gabbing a few plates, since it was his turn on the chore schedule for him to clean the dinner dishes. He stacked the plates and made his way over to the sink.

As the group broke up, Inara stayed behind and gathered up the rest of the dishes as Mal dumped his stack of dirty plates in the sink and sprinkled them with some of the artificially strawberry scented soap flakes Kaylee had gotten last time she'd been in charge of getting kitchen supplies. Given the size of the industrial strength box of soap flakes, Mal had an uneasy feeling his food was going to taste faintly of soapy strawberries well until the next century.

He turned the water on, intent on only keeping the spigot running long enough to just rinse everything, trying to save water, and missing the cold look on Inara's face as he started washing dishes.

The Companion managed to grab his attention when she took the frying pan, greasy with the proto-plum sauce the artificially duck flavored protein had been fried in, and dropped it into the sink with enough force to cause the water to splash onto Mal's front.

"_Wei_?!" he exclaimed in confusion, holding out his soapy hands as he looked down at his water stained shirt.

"Ezra?" Inara asked icily, giving Mal a death glare. "You'll need to let that pan soak, by the way."

"Ezra's best and closest place to buy wholesale. What's the problem?" he asked, looking honestly confused at her hostility. "And this'll scrub up fine," he insisted, despite picking up one of the other dishes to wash, letting the pan sink to the bottom of the grimy water.

"Don't play innocent with me, Malcolm Reynolds," huffed Inara. "You know as well as I do that the majority of the planet's population wouldn't look twice at a Companion." She grabbed the now clean plate from Mal's hands, picked up a dishcloth, and took over with the drying process. "They're big fans of sex on Ezra-"

"Hence the fact they got one of the most populated planets of the whole Rim," interrupted Mal as he washed the dishes, which Inara ignored as she went on, both with the dish drying and the lecture:

"-but only within the strict confines of the marital bed. I knew a Companion who left the Guild to marry a native of Ezra, and she told me that she had more sex with her husband than she'd had with all of her clients put together," she said, staking the now dry plates forcefully.

"Huh," said Mal thoughtfully, his eyes glazing over as he considered that, hands unmoving in the sink. He shock himself out of his brief reverie and started scrubbing the frying pan vigorously, "Well, I'm sure there's plenty of unhitched folk who-"

"It would be considered an insult to any potential spouses. Despite the fact its one of the most civilized and densely populated planets of the Rim, there's no Guild presence on Ezra. Companions traveling through the area only stop there if they need supplies," insisted Inara, moving on to drying the damp but now clean cups.

"So, I'm sure you can use this stop to get yourself some fancy fripperies you might be needing," said Mal as he briefly turned the taps on to let more water into the sink.

"Mal, my point is I couldn't think of a worse stop for a Companion this side of the 'verse!" said Inara incredulously, the cups making a slight clinking noise as she stacked them back in the cupboard.

"I go where the work is," he insisted stubbornly, eyes seemingly intent on the stains he was trying to scrub out.

"And what about my work?" she asked, putting the dishcloth down to glare at him and fold her arms angrily over her chest.

"You'll be back to work in next to no time," Mal told her, scrubbing harder. He looked up at her, "Soon as this job's over we'll have you back in bed with those not looking for potential spouses," he needled.

"_Daì ruò mù ji,_" she snapped, and stalked out of the room.

Mal angrily abandoned the scrubbing and left the pan to soak, leaving the kitchen in the opposite direction had Inara had gone, ready to lash out at the next person he saw, which happened to be Simon. He meanly reminded the doctor that he and his sister would be confined on the ship when they hit planetside, as it would be too risky to allow two fugitives out and about in such a populous area. Simon agreed with a calm but despondent nod, and murmured something about putting together a list for someone to take with them to get the supplies needed for the infirmary.

As Simon headed back to the infirmary to do a double check on what was in stock and what was needed, he saw River sitting in the living area, kneeling in front of the table and scribbling industrially on several pieces of paper. She looked calmer than she had in a while, and her current look of concentration argued well for her current state of being. He wandered over hopefully.

"The captain's a boob," she said without looking up.

"He can be," said Simon with a little chuckle after glancing over his shoulder to make sure said captain was out of ear shot. He turned back to River. "Are you drawing something?" he asked brightly, as if he was doing rounds in the pediatric ward.

"It's a list," she said, giving him a look as if that should have been obvious, and shuffled the papers so he couldn't see what she had been working on.

"A list? The captain already-"

"It's for Miriam Schmieder," she told him cryptically.

"Who is-?"

"Silly _ge-ge_," she giggled, "she doesn't exist yet." She then trailed around the ship with her list and proceeded to borrow an odd assortment of items from the crew. Kaylee lent her wire and scissors and glue and happily gave River some of her old bits of clothes that she was planning on turning into oil rags anyway. Inara, pretending she hadn't just been brushing angry tears from her eyes, was happy to give River an odd assortment of old make up and some brushes and a dress she had already decided was going out of fashion, although she had looked somewhat disconcerted to hear her thoughts on it's old style voiced by River as the psychic picked it out of the wardrobe.

River then begged very prettily for some spearmint gum from Jayne, saying it was a vital component for her plan. Jayne finally consented when she said very sweetly that if he gave her some gum she promised not to come into his room that night and wake him up with her best impression of the shrieking wildcats found in the forests of Darwin.

She then gathered up all of the art supplies Simon had been scrounging up for her whenever they were in port, and, under the eye of her brother, gathered up a few things in the infirmary that he ok-ed as being harmless, even in the hands of River, including cotton balls and a plastic glove. She dumped her armful of supplies in her room, then poked through Simon's room and took one of his fancy white starched dress shirts, pointing out it was now looking rather limp and off white and not so fancy. Simon rolled his eyes but didn't protest. Next she headed up to the kitchen, where Mal and Simon and Jayne, all in their own manner, objected to River having free reign around so many potential dangerous objects:

"You better keep that kid on a leash."

"_Mei-mei_, I don't want you to get hurt."

"Butcher's knife!"

River frowned, hummed a few notes of something by Mozart, then said very seriously, "Playing is not an activity limited to the younglings of the pack – it is an important activity to stimulate neurological health for the brain at any age level. The play hunt acts as practice for the real hunt for scavenger and predator alike. Everyone can join in. I will moderate." She put the list down on the table and smiled brightly. "Let the scavenger hunt game begin!"

Everyone seemed ok with the idea of a scavenger hunt for the rest of the things on River's obscure list, and joined in.

Top of the list was a wax candle, which Simon found – one of the ones from the cake at his aborted birthday party, in fact. As he held the candle in his hand he paused, wondering what actually had happened to the cake amongst all the chaos of fire and trauma and air loss and breakdowns and surgery. Simon strongly suspected that Jayne had eaten the whole thing while he had been stitching the captain back together again.

Mal managed to find a rounded butter knife, which, when he pulled it out of the back the utensil drawer, he claimed must have been the bastard child of a tea spoon and one of the steak knives, since he'd never laid eyes on the thing before, and joked that he was surprised the soup ladle hadn't hauled the father in for a shot gun wedding.

River giggled. "Therefore summon the cheeses," she said.

When Wash found the last thing on the list – a packet of freeze dried strawberry pudding powder – River gave him a kiss on the check, told him dinosaurs still fly, took all of things found on the bizarre scavenger hunt, and skipped off to her room and locked herself inside. Simon tried to convince her to open the door, but stopped when he heard her singing through the door a song he had indentified to the mystified crew as the opening aria to Verdi's _Aida_.

Simon looked downright relieved and let Kaylee take him over to the living area where he told her about River's flair for theatrics and how growing up she had enjoyed creating costumes and masks almost as much as learning new dances.

About an hour later River emerged and both Simon and Kaylee did a double take at the altered sight of her.

River now looked about twenty pounds heaver, especially around the waist and breasts, she was in an ankle length blue skirt with her combat boots peaking out from beneath the hem. She wore a small white apron over the skirt, more decorative than functional, and the skirt puffed out slightly, suggesting several layers of petticoats. She had somehow both brightened and feminized Simon's old shirt to the point of almost un-recognizability, with newly laced cuffs that came down to and over her wrists and a new lacy collar that covered most of her neck. Her hair was now auburn and twisted into a bun with what looked like an authentic yarmulke pinned on top. To finish off the new look she wore a pair of wire framed glasses perched on a nose now a different shape, looking decidedly more pert than River's own aquiline features, covered with a smattering of new freckles.

"River… your face," stammered Simon in astonishment, "what… how…?"

She smiled broadly, "No matter how far we wander we carry our ancestors' blood with us."

"_Wode tìan_!" exclaimed Kaylee in admiration. "If I saw you on the street I wouldn't recognize you!"

"Miriam will travel alongside the River and," she grinned mischievously, "she'll help her brother escape Pharaoh's soldiers! Aaron may enter stage right. Your costume's ready."

"Oh no," said Simon as he buried his face in his hands. He felt like he was ten years old again and his little sister was talking him into playing the secondary character in whatever play she had written that weekend.

"Dr. Aaron Schmieder will accompany his _mei-mei_ to market, he is after all, _achiv_," she smiled at him with a look that suggested she had no doubt he would do as he was told. "_Laila_ _Tov_," she said cheerfully, "the actress must rest now and get her beauty sleep if she wishes to perform properly when its time to go on stage." And she calmly sauntered off to her room.

Kaylee started happily chattering on to him about how this was such a good sign for River's mental health progress. She stopped mid sentence when she realized Simon's wasn't saying anything. "Simon? What's wrong?" she asked worriedly.

His gaze was a million miles away as he said dully, "I wish I wasn't constrained by my Hippocratic Oath." He took a shaky breath. "The people who tried to break my sister deserve…" He looked at Kaylee with sad eyes and said in a slightly chocked voice, "Sometimes I want to hurt those _hundan__s_ so badly." His expression was as beseeching as a little boy's, asking for something he knew he wasn't ever going to get. She tentatively put an arm around his shoulder and let him lean against her. They both sat in silence on the couch for a long time, each wrapped up in their separate thoughts as they sat together.

*****************************************************

When _Serenity_ was just a few hours away from Ezra, Simon reluctantly put on the outfit that River had put together out for him and allowed her to apply the makeup that made him look about ten years older and a passable candidate for a native of Ezra. "Don't be talking too much, _boychick_, you sound like a _goy_," she admonished him as she handed him his sunglasses, sounding like she had been born in Nayshtot, Ezra's largest city, known throughout much of the verse for its publishing houses and pastries.

When Mal saw them he grudgingly admitted that they looked nothing like their reward posters and conceded they could take part in the shopping trips. "But," he lectured, "if you two get yourselves captured again we will _not_ be coming in for some sort of heroic rescue this time. Some hick village is one thing. No way we go up against the entirety of Ezra. Even I ain't that _feng le_. Alliance and Independents both knew better than to mess with them and so do I. Keep that in mind."

Ezra had declared itself neutral at the start of the Unification War, and, astonishingly, managed to maintain that neutrality throughout the entirety of the war. It was rumored a lot of back room deals had been made with higher ups in both the Independent and Alliance governments, and it was certainly true that the majority of the moon's population was geared toward providing anyone with just about anything they might need, and at extremely decent rates, especially if you bought in bulk, which both armies had taken advantage of. It was also true that Ezra had a private defense outfit, officially referred to by the moon's government as the Department for Immigration, and referred to in common slang as 'owls', overseeing Ezra's security. They could handle anything from domestic abuse to invading armies. Lawbreakers were dealt with swiftly and harshly. The moon's military fleet was supposedly in orbit to protect against the threat of piracy, but everyone else got the hint.

Ezra's terraforming had been less than a stellar success, resulting in a mostly desert terrain, like most of the class-3 biosphere worlds found along the Rim where less time and money had been spent on the terraformation. However, Ezra's terraforming did result in a heavy handful of oases spotting the surface of the landscape, making settlement easier to do without outside support, and each oasis resulted in a city springing up almost overnight when the colonists arrived from the Core in their fleet of ships back in 2448 with a determination for self sufficiency and religious freedom, and a resolve to make enough money to ensure that their autonomy and freedom of worship could be backed up with the coin that made the 'verse spin round.

Half an hour before entering the planet's atmosphere Mal called a meeting, stressing attendance was mandatory for everyone, unless someone had a hankering for a month of septic valve duty. With everyone gathered around the dining room table, Mal stood up, thumbs under his suspenders, making a point of being extra captain-y and also making the rather obvious point of not looking at Inara as he was speaking.

"Ok," said Mal, "Ya'll got your lists of what's needed when we land. We'll be meeting back up at 2100 hours at _The Golden Calf_. It's at 77 Khazer Street – right across from the dockyards where _Serenity_'ll be, can't miss it. And don't waste time dawdling, as we'll be paying a fairly steep docking charge."

_Serenity_ landed at New Haifa, a middle sized city near Ezra's equator the next afternoon, right on schedule and everyone got off, just as eager to get away from the tension between Mal and Inara as they were to have some time planetside.

Mal had Jayne help him offload the copper supplies, finding a buyer who raved about the authentic rustic look to it. Jayne then set off on a cheerful saunter to bargain for new loads of ammo for the crew and for the Heart of Gold. Jayne seemed quite taken by the Heart's girls' ability to pick up arms and was cheerful about finding them the best supplies he could so they could keep up target practice. He cheerfully promised Mal he'd be extra intimidating to guarantee a good discount as he loaded up on destructive supplies.

Simon nervously let River go off with Kaylee and Inara to get clothing supplies while he went to a nearby pharmacy warehouse to stock up on medical supplies for the infirmary. Kaylee made him promise to meet back up with them at noon at a tea shop they had spotted near the docks for lunch.

The three ladies headed off down the walkway towards where Inara knew of a vendor who sold reasonably priced bolts of fabric in good quality. Inara may not have had any business prospects to pursue on Ezra, but a true Companion still made sure to always keep herself aware of the local color, no matter where that locale was, or what color it happened to be.

Traveling members of the Guild kept in touch, providing each other with information on who could provide the necessary luxuries needed for their trade, no matter where in the 'verse a Companion found herself. As Companions traveled, they let each other know things, such as where to find a good teahouse on this or that Border moon, or who ran the best seamstress shop on this or that Rim planet. Companions sent out detailed notes on the Cortex on where, in any given system, on any moon or planet, was the best place to shop, to dine, to entertain, to bargain hunt or spend lavishly, to go sightseeing or to meditate - whatever the job might call for.

The intricate network was called the Silk Road, named as much for the beautifully clad Companions who ventured out of the Core as it was for the ancient trade routes on Earth-That-Was that had been used to import luxuries such as silks, porcelains, perfumes, spices and jewels across continents. A true Companion had to be able to land on any given world and be able to navigate quickly past the tourist traps and find the best of a host of trades, from who sold the best wines to who was the best at wine stain removal.

A Companion needed to be able to quickly get in touch with the many professionals that were vital to providing the behind the scenes work needed to appear composed, graceful and beautiful at all times. The Silk Road allowed a member of the Guild to disembark on a Border planet she had never set foot on before and walk around with almost the same surety as a native and almost immediately find the best place to buy teas, candles, perfumes, flowers, chocolates, soaps, ribbons, incense, or anything else needed that day for work.

At the moment what Inara felt she needed was time to think, away from Mal. She needed to plan her next move, and she needed to somehow find the best way to tell the crew, especially Kaylee, who was like a _mei-mei_ to her now, the news that she was leaving. Upon setting out into New Haifa with Inara and River she had taken the portion of the list for cloth and sewing supplies. She was already resolved to send on a few of her own outfits and ceremonial supplies to the Heart of Gold, telling herself it would make up for not being there. She honestly did not know how she felt - knowing she wouldn't be on the ship when it headed back to Deadwood, and that scared her so much she felt there was no recourse but to flee behind her training and her mask of composure to try and still the too rapid beating of her heart.

She smiled a perfect mask of calm happiness as she read a portion of the list with a light merriment she did not feel: "Cloth for baby outfits, silktex and lightweight corduroy preferred, five measures each. Two standard bolts white cotton-synth. Yarn and thread – all colors. Sewing needle packets, medium weight. And there's a list of types of sewing patterns their looking for." She shuffled the papers in her hand, "And the young mother forwarded some pages from the Hey-Yu catalog indicating the type of clothes the girls are in need of."

The Heyland-Yutani Corporation, referred to as Hey-Yu by most, was a major clothing supplier, keeping most of the sprawled out colonies (those that could afford mail order products) clothed. They had supplied the actual coats of hard wearing dirt-camouflage-colored leather to the Independents during the war. After Unification they had paid some very stiff fines and signed numerous trade agreements stipulating they would provide deeply discounted clothes for several Core based, Unification supporting, companies, such as Blue Sun, to outfit menial workers, and so were graciously allowed to stay in business and keep on selling clothes in the Border. There wasn't a janitor in the Core that didn't wear a uniform made by Heyland-Yutani nor a bride from the Border that didn't have some Heyland-Yutani undergarments in her trousseau.

"What did they circle?" asked Kaylee, curious. "When I was little my ma would give me the children's section of the Hey-Yu catalog and have me pick my favorite dresses, and she'd try and make a few of mine like that and I'd pretend they were right from the store." Laughing, she said, "'A course, ma would get so mad when I'd go straight from Sunday School to daddy's shop and get the poor dresses covered in grease!"

Amused at the girl's memories of simple joy, Inara passed a page to Kaylee, whose eyebrows shot up as she glanced over the selections indicated. "Well, I guess they need clothes like that, line of work their in."

"Nothing's simple," River piped up at that point. "Not for her. A girl but not allowed to be a girl. No girls allowed. Wendy left Neverland." She smiled as Kaylee and Inara stared at her. "The dead silver moon from Earth-That-Was sings the same song for every living woman."

"Is it a good song?" asked Kaylee, cheerful but a little wary.

River beamed. "A silent song. The melody throbs in my ear. The beat beats inside." She tilted her head to the side slightly, birdlike. "New clothes?" she asked hopefully. The other two smiled and walked on with her, Inara pretending everything was fine, Kaylee telling herself everything was fine, and River humming 'The Ride of the Valkyries'.

Passing from the docks to the nearby markets, they walked through an avenue of boarding houses for those staying longer than just a day. They passed one bed-and-breakfast whose sign bore the ad: _Rachab's Place – Come in when you're done wandering! _The middle of the sign was blazoned with the picture of a stylized woman made of just a few drawn lines holding up a mug of beer in a welcoming gesture. At the bottom was the official slogan of the bar and hotel chain: _Come for the beer – stay for the hospitality!_

When they reached the clothing store, _Shari's Fabric Emporium_, River ran through the shop like a little kid, touching every fabric and chattering nonstop, giving her opinion on softness and what fabric had the best molecular density. Inara smiled indulgently while overseeing the bargaining for the sewing supplies needed, as well as _surreptitiously_ adding several yards of a bright golden fabric she saw Kaylee look at it with longing. Inara had no idea what she would make yet, but she was sure she could create a lovely parting gift of something for Kaylee.

Inara was sure Mal would be shocked if he knew any Companion worth her salt knew how to sew. Brushing away thoughts of captains and good bye presents, she led Kaylee and River to the next stop on the list to look at ready-made clothing items at an indoor market, a indoor bazaar of delightful noise and color, where everywhere one looked there was a stall specializing in one of the many types of clothing needed to cover a girl from top to toe.

Not far from there, Zoe and Wash were following a list for some general household supplies, both for _Serenity_ and for the Heart of Gold. They bought the assemble-it-yourself high chair that was on Petaline's list and then Wash insisted on finding a toy store that sold model dinosaurs, telling Zoe that all kids should grow up with dinosaurs. "Look at me! I played with dinosaurs and look how great I turned out!" he told her as they stood in the Zôngsè Xióng Toy Store and he considered between the plastic T-Rex and the plush Stegosaurus. She outright laughed at that before investigating to see if the store carried any good alphabet toys.

As Wash put down the dinosaurs, distracted by a toy spaceship, he glanced over at Zoe as she picked up a toy panda bear from a bin of soft toys. For a moment her barriers came down and he saw the softest look on her face. He look away quickly, afraid of what he might say if she caught him seeing her so unguarded. He resolved that they were going to have to talk.

As they set back out onto the street he tied, and failed, to bring the topic up several times, and always somehow his sentences came out as jokes about something else entirely. He finally gave up and resolved to talk with her back on the metaphorically solid ground of _Serenity_. In the meantime, he found a little restaurant he knew of, Cafe Korus, for lunch.

A friend from flight school, who went by the arcane nickname of 'Mr. Universe,' claiming once they he had lost his own name in a game of poker, had always recommended to them that the next time they were on Ezra to stop there for the best quiche in the whole verse.

Meanwhile, across town, after gathering an assortment of spices and other dried food goods, Book stopped at the local Interfaith Center. As much as he was finding his time back in the 'verse enlightening, and a constant reminder of the reasons he left it in the first place, he was glad to have the occasional opportunity to compare notes with other spiritual leaders, to see how others in his position were doing on their search for the right path. In an old office at the center, amidst stacks of books and surrounded by the familiar scent of paper and incense, he had a long chat with another man of faith over a pot of coffee. The clay pot had long gone cold by the time they finished their discussion, two old men comparing notes on the difficulties of hammering a spear into a plow.

At noon Inara, Kaylee and River met up with Simon at the tea shop and they all shared a lunch of hot dumplings and iced _tea._ After lunch Inara volunteered to take River with her to look into a few nice things perhaps to make the passenger dorms more homey after a beseeching glance from Kaylee. Kaylee and Simon then went for walk, taking in the sights of the busy market town as they made their way to an electronics warehouse where Kaylee hoped to get some both decent and affordable parts for _Serenity_ as well as some parts to fix a few problems she had spotted at the Heart of Gold

*****************************************************

That evening they all gradually trickled into _The Golden Calf_, some bearing parcels, some having already dropped their things at the ship or arranged for things to be delivered to _Serenity_. Mal ordered falafels for everyone along with a round of the local beer, except for River, who got milk as Simon insisted that he didn't know what alcohol would do when mixed with the medications River was on. Jayne sneeringly made a tasteless joke about River being more drugged than a strung out red rock junkie. Simon looked like he was going to respond with something biting, but subsided when the captain reminded them that they could both pay for their own gorram dinner if they didn't knock it off.

When the order was set down by a somewhat surly waitress River frowned at her dinner suspiciously and gave it a little poke.

"Try eating it, little one," suggested the captain.

"Eating. Eating is the process of consuming food to provide for the nutritional needs of an animal, particularly their energy requirements and to grow. All animals must eat organisms in order to survive: carnivores eat other animals, herbivores eat plants, and omnivores consume a mixture of both." She paused. "The food is _different_," she concluded with a frown. She looked up at him with frightened brown eyes. "It might be bad!"

"Different don't mean bad," said Mal reasonably. "From folks around here point of view it's as normal as my ma's apple pie." He took a large bite of his own, chickpeas spilling out, giving her a closed mouth smile while he chewed noisily to demonstrate the food's edibleness. "Mmmmhhhmm," he said with exaggerated delight, causing most of the others at the table to laugh or smile.

River looked around at those in the tavern who looked to be from Ezra. She tipped her head, as if listening to something, and gave her dry lips a little lick. "_Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Haolam, borei minei m'zonot_," she said lyrically in a dreamy voice, and then took a large bite.

"'Iz good!" she said with her mouth full, sesame sauce dripping down her chin, sounding happily surprised.

"Glad to hear it," said the captain and kept eating his own dinner.

After finishing dinner they all headed back to the ship, relaxed and well fed, chatting and happy over a job gone smooth and a day of good shopping. Along the way to the ship berths they passed alongside a building, the side made of a brick wall papered with various advertisements layered on top of one another, in a variety of languages, quite a few for a travel agency that promised to help book passage to almost anywhere in the verse, promising to fulfill anyone's deserve, from exotic vistas on Core planets to utter tranquility out on the farthest reaches of the Rim. River casually torn one of the older ones off the wall, "Lies, lies, lies, walls of lies," she muttered angrily. She threw the poster on the ground and stomped on it with her combat boots.

"Hey now, little one, lets not be making a scene here, _dong ma_?" said Mal, using his I'm-calm-but-about-to-get-pissed voice.

"River, sweetie-" said Inara, placing a calming hand on River's shoulder. River flinched back and snarled like a cornered animal, causing most of the others to take a step back, startled. Almost without conscious thought Kaylee found herself hiding behind Mal, checking to make sure there wasn't a gun in the little girl's hand.

Simon stepped forward and tried to calm her down, "River, it's going to be ok, just a few more minutes and we'll be back on the ship and I'll get you your next dose-"

"No!" she shrieked. "No medicine! I don't want to go to sleep! No sleep! Nightmares, nightmares, they're coming! They're real! Daddy can't make the monsters under the bed go away! He doesn't know Big Brother holds the sword of Damocles! The O2 canisters smile past me and ride pale horses!" Her yarmulke went flying off as she shook her head like a spooked horse.

She became more and more agitated, her words pouring out in odd jumbles of metaphors and sentence fragments, poetry recitations and scientific facts, all jumbled together as she tried to explain something, but only succeeded in making herself more and more hysterical. She was smudging her makeup disguise, making her look even crazier. As she raved, Jayne and Mal each took hold of her, half propelling her, half carrying her, as the group hurried along to the docks as fast as they could. As they quickly darted down the street, none of them spared a glance for the crumbled remains of the travel poster laying on the ground.

-IRANDA a fragment of the poster said, the rest of the travel ad in tiny pieces ground into the dirt.

Back on _Serenity_, Jayne and Mal had to physically hold her down, Jayne muttering darkly under his breath about _feng le_ girls, as Simon administered a heavy dose of sedative, more than he usually had to, to get her to finally slip into an uneasy unconsciousness, a frown of anxiety to match Simon's own worry still on her face as he lay her gently on her bed to – hopefully – sleep off her latest psychotic episode.

"Wash," said Mal curtly, "get us in the air. No need to hang around now that the shopping's done."

Wash didn't even take the time to make a joke; he sprinted up the stairs to the bridge, knowing without asking that Mal would want a route plotted that would take them through the deepest parts of empty space to their next job.

**********************************************************

"I like navigation," said Wash abruptly.

It was late in the artificial night, Ezra already far behind them. Wash and Zoe cuddled in the pilot's chair, deep in post-coital bliss.

"Hmm?" said Zoe with curiosity. She rubbed up against him and pulled the blanket closer around them. Back when Wash was convincing her that he was serious about his marriage proposal and it wasn't just another one of his jokes, he had introduced her to sex-on-the-bridge, which turned out to be something else she had underestimated him on. But, almost as good as the sex, was the post-coital talks. He made her laugh, and, for someone who had walked through Serenity Valley, that was just as important as mind blowing sex with the stars overhead.

"I like astronomy too," he went on, waving his arm vaguely at the stars visible through the glass. "The stars are always… there, you know? And with navigation, you just do the math and you can make paths between 'em. I like planning that."

Zoe looked at him seriously, knowing where this was going. "You can't plan everything, honey," she said softly. "Could you have planned you and me?"

He looked at her with a little grin. "Lamby toes, I planned on marrying you from the first day we met."

She raised one eyebrow. "I damn near broke your arm that day," she reminded him dryly.

He chuckled somewhat nervously. "The plan went underwent a bit of revision, I'll admit. I definitely had to recalibrate to take into account the occasional unforeseen meteor shower. But see," he snaked an arm around her hips, "my plan worked."

She leaned in and kissed him gently with a sigh, then told him, catching his eyes and holding her gaze steady with his, "I planned on having a child with you since the day we got married. Do you think that plan will work? Map something out and then deal with any unexpected meteor showers along the way?"

Wash didn't stiffen the way he usually had when she had brought up the idea of kids before. He looked thoughtful – clearly he had been thinking about this. "I think… I think if that little Petaline could protect her baby, then we'd have no problem."

"We?" she asked playfully, a feeling exploding in her chest that took her a moment to recognize as 'joy.'

"Ok, you. _You'd_ have no problem. I'll do the awesome flying away, as usual, after you shoot whoever oh so foolishly thought they could hurt our family."

"Honey, you sure about this?" She took his face in both hands, anxious. "Did we just decide-?"

"Zoe, I'm sure I love you. I think I'm ready to take the plunge. I might have a few minor freak outs, though. Just, you know, fair warning."

Zoe chuckled deep in the back of her throat and kissed him, sweet as chocolate.

**Translations**

**Mandarin:**

_Ai yah Tien ah– _Merciless hell

_liou coe shway duh biao-tze huh hoe-tze duh ur-tze_," – Son of a drooling whore and a monkey

_Duhn ruhn– _Of course

_Feichang-Cola_ – Future-Cola; a real drink made in China

_buhn dahn_ – idiot

_Xie-xie, juéshì– _Thank you, sir

_Biz yu_– Shut up!

_Wei – _What? Hey!

_Dai ruo mu ji_ – you are as dumb as a wooden chicken

_ge-ge_ – older brother

_mei-mei _– little sister

_Wode tìan – _Oh God!

_hundan_ – bastard

_feng le__– _crazy

_zôngsè xióng_ – brown bear

_dong ma – _understand?

**French:**

_Pas-de-deux – _a dance for two

_Grand jete sans phys – _'long jump without gravity.' The 'Grand jete' is a ballet move; "classical anti-gravity ballet" is my own invention based on a dance performance given by cosmonauts in part with theSadlers Wells & Institute of Physics in London.

**Hebrew**

_Achiv – _her brother

_Laila Tov_ – Good night

_Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech Haolam, borei minei m'zonot_ - a blessing recited before eating

**Yiddish**

_Khazer_ - boar

_Schmieder_ - Smith

_Nayshtot_ – New City

_Boychick_ – slang for young man

_Goy_ - not of the faith


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

*********************************************************************

**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Three**

**Deadwood**

Caroline smiled affectionately at the face on her Cortex screen. "We'll talk again soon," she said warmly. She bowed slightly. "_Zai jian, shian shen_," she said.

As soon as the screen went blank she dropped the smile and rolled her eyes.

The minister she was bringing to Deadwood was certainly an affable young man – as well as idealistic and naive. He would suit nicely. But there was only some much youthful enthusiasm she could stand in any one sitting before she felt the need for a strong drink and some sarcastic wit. When she was done with her work for today she looked forward to tall Beijing Island Iced Tea and book of Sarah Whedon essays, one of the most acidic and biting humor writers of the 23rd century.

The minister, Mark Kell, was coming just in time to celebrate landing Day with his new flock and was helping on his end to arrange some shipments that she had ordered. Of course, she still needed to arrange for the supplies for building the church – which, obviously, had to be done before the minster came, and there were some other calls she needed to make.

Caroline sighed as she prepared to send the next wave. The nearest Alliance office had to be notified that Deadwood's magistrate was dead. It was a pity the position wasn't an inherited one, like the seats in the House of Lords.

She allowed herself to daydream for a moment what it would be like to live on Londinium, to walk the hallways of real power, then jolted back to the present, and sternly forced herself to send the wave. She was tempted to not make the call and see how long it took their supposedly ever vigilant government to even notice that one of their own representatives had died.

She snorted in amusement.

It would probably take quite a while, considering how little interest the Alliance paid to the Qing Long system, one of the furthest out sections of the Rim.

Life out in the Rim was often different from the official party line. Out here, each planet had a governor and each moon had had a magistrate running things. Officially, they were qualified members of the Alliance government who had been appointed to run things while the Rim and Border recovered from the Unification War. The promise was for elections to follow as soon as things were "settled" – something the Alliance never did seem to define, and the deadline for the transfer from appointed officials to elected officials seemed to keep being pushed back for one reason or another.

Having non-locals in charge of any given Rim or Border world was part of the Reconstruction plan, a sneakily inserted paragraph in the Unification treaty, reasoned by the victors to be necessary to keep Browncoat leaders from rising up again and rallying new hostilities.

The governoral and magistratial appointees tended to be from the Core, or knew the right people back in the Core, or had paid the right people back in the Core. Rance was part of the third group. Even for an out of the way place like Deadwood, Caroline was vaguely aware that there had been some fierce bidding for the position. She strongly suspected he had taken some harsh measures to make sure he beat out the competition. She cynically wondered how much people were going to pay – and who would pocket the profits – this time round for the magisterial position.

The gas planet – Laramie – that Deadwood, Bella and Fremont circled was, obviously, uninhabitable, being made of pure hydrogen, so their particular planetary block had no governor, and the magistrates of Deadwood and Fremont, (Bella had long since been abandoned after the platinum mines dried up), as well as the magistrates for Chaldea and Artemisia circling the neighboring, and equally uninhabitable, dead rock planet of Tournesol, all reported, at least on paper, to the governor of Salisbury, the main planet back in the Border system of Zhaunxu.

However, the truth was each magistrate ran their own moon as they saw fit and the Alliance officials back in the Border rarely bestirred themselves to interfere with a set of Outer Rim moons with a population combined the size of barely one Border city, producing very little bedsides subsistence living.

Once Caroline had been transferred around about half a dozen times to different Alliance bureaucrats, repeating her news each time – some transferring her mid-sentence – she explained again to the current official on the screen that her husband was dead and their moon was in need of a new magistrate.

She appeared to be finally speaking with the right official for this kind of situation, because he began taping busily at his console, most likely already alerting half a dozen computer systems of the change of status as he offered polite condolences for her loss, although he looked rather bored with the whole situation. A dead magistrate on a class-3 moon in the Outer Rim was hardly something to get excited about.

"How did he die?" he asked dully, typing a few notes into his console. "Heart attack?"

"He assaulted two women. He shot and killed one of them. The second woman shot and killed him to prevent him from attacking again," she reported as clinically as she could.

"Why did he attack them?" he asked curiously. For the first time in the conversation he actually looked like he was listening, looking at her like she had suddenly started reciting some intriguing _dashu_.

She paused and then said with deliberate carefulness, "I didn't ask my husband about the other beds he slept in. But, since you ask, I believe this was a matter of him overreacting to being denied what he wanted."

"Were there witnesses?"

"There was quite a crowd," she said, adding a hint of asperity to her tone, "some egging him on, some trying to stop him," she said blandly. "They'll _all_ testify though to the fact that it was self defense, plain and simple, I'm sure."

_Or they will after I've had a talk with them_, she thought herself.

She was sure a gentle reminder to the Petaline and the girls at the Heart of Gold that it had been self defense was all that was needed for them, and all she'd have to do for her workers was remind them that a testimony of self defense was required if they wished to keep their jobs would do the trick.

"Of course the Alliance wishes to have all people in the 'verse represented," he said, quickly rushing through the rhetoric, "but it may take a few a months to get officials out there to wrap up the loose ends of this tragic business and get you a new magistrate, and I don't believe we have any Alliance ships due to your neck of the woods in quite some time-"

She smiled graciously. "We have supply personal and cargo ships due in to Deadwood in about three months time. Our new magistrate could arrange to book passage on one of them."

He frowned thoughtfully. "That would solve things neatly." He gave her half a glance of suspicion, as if things working out neatly was a sign of illegal behavior rather than efficiency. Years of training as a proper daughter and wife allowed her to gaze back at him with perfect sanguine and innocence.

When she had finished up the call, she carefully made a check mark next to the word 'Alliance' at the top of a long list of calls she needed to make.

She needed to get more people out here – and not just anyone, she needed to get people with skills. If it was just a matter of field hands or laborers needed, one wave to a colony organizer and she'd have a boatload of workers hauled out here within a month. But she needed people with qualifications, and they needed to be people who _wanted_ to be here, not some _bei be shiou ren_ stuck in an indenture for a gambling debt he couldn't pay off, or a criminal looking to reduce time with colony work.

The catch was what to offer. What she had the most of was land, useless desert terrain, mostly, but still, land, and large amounts of it, bought in Rance's name, but with her money as well as his, and, after all, she was the executer of that little bastard's inheritance.

She tapped a pen on one of the deeds as she thought. Cut rate prices on long term leases, offered to people from the more crowded Border planets; people who had skills but were being muscled out of top positions by unions with too many high fees, government regulations with too much red tape, master craftsmen who refused to promote anyone except nieces and nephews, and cities too overcrowded with competing shops.

She opened up one of the account books, calculating how much she could offer in loans to help people set up businesses here. Her husband had known how to make money – she'd give him that. She'd always been impressed and in fact proud of him for his ability to squeeze the last credit out of anything.

But she had also been rather exasperated with his tendency to spend his money almost as fast as he made it on the most expensive, most flashy items possible to show off his wealth. Such gauche behavior was looked down upon in the society she had grown up in back on Greenwood.

She knew it was foolish to dwell on the past, but it still rankled to remember her childhood: garden parties on stately green lawns with ladies in bright summer outfits, tea parties in pavilions where stately ladies held court in pastel regal fashions surrounded by blooming gardens, cotillions made up of rustling skirts in every color imaginable swirling around on gleaming hardwood floors of ballrooms with gilded walls in the classical style of the grand homes.

All of her memories where alive with rich, vibrant colors, and not a speck of dirt to be seen anywhere. It was a lush, green world where only the most genteel manners existed – a tiny pocket of rich, intelligent, civilization out in the Border.

Her world had been built upon the promise of providing the 'verse with the drugs needed to cure just about any disease that developed on those brave new worlds, and as the denizens of Greenleaf had fulfilled that promise, they had prospered.

But all that had changed during the war.

She shook off dreams of the past and went back to contacting people, taking detailed notes on who could provide the best rates on shipping and goods, and who were the best headhunters to scoop out young and cheap skilled workers who were willing to immigrate out to the Rim. To Deadwood.

Deadwood.

It was a sick joke or a blunt warning some planeteer had left on the moon when the terraforming process couldn't coax anything better than a class-3 biosphere. Other colonies got pretty names – named for deities, ancient cities, pretty flowers, and precious jewels. Her moon was slapped with a label telling everyone it was as barren as she was.

But, come hell or high water, life found a way, and so would Caroline. The name was, like so many things here, an assumption based on just the surface of things. The moon could be productive, you just had to determined, unrelenting, and patient enough to coax anything out of the ground. Right now very little was happening on Deadwood. But she was going to change things. Even the name.

Name changes had happened before – when the terraforming process out on Pallas had gone south and most of the original colonists died, it had been unofficially renamed Valhalla and no amount of Alliance propaganda of the medicines now available to counteract the faunospores in the air would convince people back, which was a pity because Greenleaf could have profited from selling residents of Valhalla the drugs needed to live there.

In a less drastic example, Hera's only moon had originally been named Forthold, but had been officially renamed Aberdeen in honor of the Earth-that-Was Celtic heritage most of those particular colonists shared.

Most recently, the last of the Core worlds to be settled, New Hope, had been renamed Bernadette just after the war to commemorate the Alliance general Bernadette Sheridan-Hale, nicknamed "Destroyer of Worlds" by the Browncoats. Her ruthless military campaigns had been a vital part of the Alliance victory. Her martyrdom after her very public assassination in Londinium's capital, a mere a month after Unification Day, had been topped with having an entire gorram planet named after her.

Back on Deadwood a name change would be hard, considering they had no rich mineral deposits here like on Silverhold or Beryl, and no spectacular vistas like on Sunset or Teng-Wěi. And Deadwood's harsh climate meant it would never be another Greenleaf – no chance of getting a name like Sweetwater or Flower Mound.

Sighing, she got back on the Cortex and began inquiries into different vendors for the supplies she was going to need.

A while later, she stared at the screen in shock at the merchant who had just given her an absurdly high quote for getting a decent air conditioning unit shipped out to the Rim. If she was going to sit for hours in a church every single Sunday, looking properly pious and responsible, being an example to the rest of the community, she wanted to be cool and sweat free while doing so, _gorram_ it! Unfortunately, her preliminary research was showing the church was going to be a much more costly expenditure than she had anticipated.

"How much?" she asked the face on the screen in frank disbelief.

"Sorry ma'm," the merchant said with absolutely no sincerity, and in fact, smiling a bit wolfishly, "but when you factor in the fuel costs, and working hours, and, well, times being what they are, these things add up."

Caroline angrily but silently seethed as she calculated how much this was going to cost.

"Plus," the man went on, "there's the cost of Reaver protection-"

"Now you're just being a _feh feh pi goh_. Reavers are stories people tell out in the Xuan Wu system to scare greenhorns. Don't treat me like a fool!" she snapped at him and shut off the wave, not interested in hearing the rest of the man's blathering. She clenched her fists, using every ounce of will power not to throw her Cortex screen across the room.

At that moment Caroline had a convenient target for her anger walk through the door.

It was Chari, carrying the tea tray. Caroline hadn't noticed it had already gotten so late in the afternoon. As Chari set the tray down on the round table, Caroline noticed that the girl still had her hair done up in that ridiculously messy bun.

Caroline got up from the desk, stalked over to her, and said to her coldly. "You ignored my orders."

"Madam?" asked Chari with wide eyed confusion and fear, clearly unnerved by her tone.

"You need to learn that you will do as you're told or you will face the consequences. Come with me," she ordered thunderously.

Not waiting to see if the girl would obey her she grabbed the girl by the upper arm and roughly pushed her out into the hallway and along to the sewing room. Once inside, she sternly told the seamstress to give her a pair of scissors and then get out.

With all due haste the woman obeyed, scuttling out of the room as fast as she could as soon as she had handed Caroline the sheers used to cut the cloth that was turned it into the clothes worm by nearly everyone in the house.

Caroline pushed Chari roughly into a chair and began pulling at the bun, forcing it to come loose in her hands, ignoring the girl's whimpers of pain as she pulled the hair down. Ruthlessly, she grabbed it all into a ponytail with one hand and cut just above the hair in her fist. She then angrily dumped the tail of hair into a wastebasket.

"Be grateful I didn't have your head _shaved_," spat Caroline. "Now get back to work." And with that she swept out of the room. Was it too much to ask for to have that little _chou biaozi_ keep her hair neat? she snarled to herself, her anger only partly assuaged.

She went back to the study and sat back down, clicking the screen back on, determined to find a better price on air conditioning.

**Meanwhile… out in the Black**

Simon was sitting in the living area; his leg propped up against the cushions in the best position to facilitate healing in the gunshot wound, or at least, wouldn't hurt the dermal stitches.

It was two days since the bounty hunter Jubal Early's kidnapping attempt had been foiled. It was late into the sleep cycle, but he was still awake, preferring to go over notes on River's condition rather than lying awake in bed, unable to ignore the twinges of pain and the replaying in his head, over and over, of what the bounty hunter had threatened.

He preferred to re-read his analysis of River's brain surgery to try and find a solution for her psychosis rather than futilely wishing he could have done something different that had led to those awful moments of first horror at what Jubal had threatened to do to Kaylee and then alarm when he thought Jubal would actually get to leave with his "bounty".

He looked up when he heard someone on the step – he'd thought everyone was in bed by now.

Zoe walked into the living area. "Doc," she said curtly in greeting.

"Hello Zoe," said Simon. He grimaced as his leg throbbed, reminding him again what it felt like to get shot. "Thank you, again, for your help with the bullet extraction," he told. "I think it definitely is going to help me from now on to know what it feels like to be the patient during these bullet wound surgeries," he said, only partly being flippant.

"Glad to help," she said brusquely, not smiling at his remark. "I hope you'll be back on your feet soon. Having a doctor on board can be helpful."

Simon glanced at her. Zoe sounded…. It was difficult to put his finger on it. Nervous? Anxious? Awkward? Definitely extra stiff, meaning she was probably covering up extra emotions. She remained standing, ignoring the chairs.

"Anything I can help with now?" he asked tentatively.

"Doc, soon as you're up and able, I'd like to schedule an appointment for a medical procedure," she said, sounding as though she was at the front desk of a clinic, asking about his calendar.

"I'll do whatever I can-" he started.

She interrupted him to say quietly but warningly, stepping closer, "A completely _confidential _procedure. The captain doesn't need to know about this… yet."

"I would never break the doctor-patient confidentially," said Simon icily, falling back on his own stiffness to cover emotions. He gave a small smile, "My integrity is one of the few things I still own, and it's not something I intend to give up."

She paused and then, astonishingly, spoke again in a conversational tone, "I imagine it must mean more, having given up so much already." She sat down, but sat on the edge of the seat, looking rather like an eagle about to stoop.

"I'd do it again in half a heartbeat, knowing _now_ how bad it actually was for River," said Simon feverently.

"She's your family," agreed Zoe.

Simon nodded, his lips thinning with anger as he thought of the man and woman he could no longer think of as his parents, considering what they had let happen to their children.

There were a thousand different scenarios that Simon had imagined as to what Mr. and Mrs. Tam had known and done, but when all was said and sifted, they had left their children to wander the dark woods with no more protest than the parents of Hansel and Gretel.

He was bitterly sure that Mr. and Mrs. Tam were keeping themselves busy these days, keeping up with the latest fashions and gossip, making investments in new stocks and doing whatever else necessary to kept their social standing. He thought of his father's anger at Simon's earliest forays into the criminal world when he had been forced to pay for Simon's bail after being arrested just for asking questions of the "wrong" people about River.

No doubt Gabriel Tam's anger would be ten times that to see Simon actively planning and acting out crimes, not to mention his mother's undoubted horror if she were to see River wearing second hand clothes, her hair unwashed and denuded of ribbons, trailing around barefoot on a ship her mother would be appalled to look at, let alone set foot on.

Simon forced himself to relax his hands, clenched tight at the imagined voices of his parents shocked protests at Simon and River's current activities and appearance, feeling his teeth clench as he thought of how they would surely look straight at the surface of things, and ignore the bigger issues, like River's mental instability, and the fact it was their own government that supported their way of life that had done that to her.

Forcefully pushing aside his angry speculative thoughts he focused his gaze back on Zoe. "What do you need done?" he asked as calmly as he could. "Hopefully I should have all I need – the warehouse on Ezra was quite diverse in its stock." He mentally ran over the list of _Serenity's_ med-bay capacities, which he had long since memorized, fixated on the problem of working with a finite amount of things that he had always taken for granted back on Osiris.

"It's just a simple extraction," said Zoe. "Shouldn't take you more than a few minutes. I need my NuLev taken out."

"I see," said Simon, in a quiet tone that said very little, neither approval nor disapproval. The NuLev was a type of contraceptive that, once implanted somewhere below the skin, required no follow up care, and was good for just about forever, only needing any attention if the woman changed her mind and wanted to become pregnant.

He leaned forward, "Where was it inserted?" he inquired. "I know a good long term sub-dermal contraceptive like that needs to be near a major upper vein."

She tapped the underside of her left arm.

"May I?" he asked politely, reaching his hands out.

She slid up her sleeve as she held out her arm.

He lifted and turned her arm gently and examined it with a clinical eye. "Given the scarring, I can't say I'm impressed with whoever inserted it-" he began in a professionally disapproving tone.

"That would be me," said Zoe dryly. She stood up, taking her arm back and pushing the sleeve back down. "During the war," she went on in a tone of someone reciting history rather than recounting personal experience, "there were reports, never confirmed one way or the other, of captured female soldiers forced into _servicing_ the other side."

Simon winced but Zoe went on: "I was in a raid on cargo ship bound for an Alliance base. While the captain oversaw redistributing the food, I found a box of dermal contraceptives in with the medical supplies. I read the manual, practiced first on myself, and then administrated to the rest to the women in our brigade. So, if worse came to worse, none of the girls still alive in the 57th Overlanders Brigade would be forced to raise some purplebelly's brat."

Her tone had gotten steadily more menacing as she spoke, so much so that Simon coughed uncomfortably and said, "Ah, Zoe, just a reminder, I was _fifteen_ when the Unification Treaty was signed."

Zoe gave him a long steady look, and then asked, "When can you remove the NuLev?"

"Uh, I wouldn't want to do any procedures until the anesthetic administrated for my own surgery have flushed out, so day after tomorrow?" he said uncertainty, somewhat afraid she would demand the surgery that instant, regardless of his current condition.

Instead she nodded, and made to leave, satisfied with his answer.

As Zoe turned away Simon blurted out, "Why now?"

She turned back to look at him. She could tell the question had as much to do with his evaluation of his own situation as hers. She found herself actually feeling sorry for the kid, having to learn a whole new lifestyle, and doing better than most would have expected.

It uncomfortably reminded her of how badly she handled going from army to civilian life, so she unbent enough to explain, "I'm not afraid to take a risk like that. A life deserves a chance, no matter where or what circumstances." Then she flashed a smile, "And Wash is now convinced I can shoot our way out of any trouble that comes up."

"He wasn't convinced of that before?" asked Simon, honestly confused at the thought of anyone doubting _Serenity_'s first mate's ability to shot down trouble.

Zoe smiled crookedly at his shock. "It was that little Petaline back on Deadwood that convinced him that a woman can hold a child and a gun at the same time," she said, and left the room.

Across the ship in the passenger dorms River sat up in her bed. She didn't why, but her head was full of spiders. Not the bad kind, that came and bit her skin and crawled into her eyes to eyes and make her one of them, but good ones, the kind that caught the bad bugs and saved lives and livestock. A line was forming. A web was taking shape. A new web, that hopefully would be better than the one she feared would catch the firefly.

River sang an old, old nursery rhyme quietly to herself, trying not to think of how delicate the spider's web was.

**Transaltions**

**Mandarin:**

_zai jian,_ _shian shen – _goodbye, young sir

_feh feh pi goh_ - baboon's ass crack

_bei be shiou ren_ - pathetic wretch

_dashu_ - grand tales; a type of Chinese storytelling

_chou biaozi - _stinking whore


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox. Events mentioned when Inara left took place in the Firefly comic books 'Better Days' and 'Those Left Behind'

**A/N** – The impound story is based on some bad luck my brother recently had. Sorry about the towing, bro – but thanks for the inspiration!

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**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Four**

"But Mrs. Burgess - !" the man protested ineffectively.

"Enough!" Caroline Burgess snapped at him, impatient at being interrupted.

"But it's been _nearly_ three months," he complained. The man – Philips – had insisted on meeting with her this morning, and started with a rehearsed speech about 'a man's right to spend his own coin' which sounded as though he had been fed it by someone else. No doubt a group of her workers wanted to protest the temporary ban on visiting the Heart of Gold, and had sent this poor _da sha gua_ to do it for them, which he did badly, quickly disintegrating into feeble whining.

"It's been two and a half months, and the ban lifts after three months, no more, no less," she said calmly from where she sat imperially at her writing desk sorting through the morning missives.

"A man's got _needs,_ Mrs. Burgess," he whined pathetically.

She considered, and rejected, telling the man the lengths of time she'd occasionally been forced to go without sex. Instead, she turned back to her desk. "There's always Chari," she suggested placidly, as if suggesting one brand of rice wine over another.

The man's eyes went wide in surprise. Never taking her eyes off the letter she was writing she added, "I know she's been doing a little work under the table – or rather, out in the garden shed – since she came into my employ, so don't complain that you haven't got _any_ options until your allowed back to the Heart of Gold."

"Three months total, yes ma'am, I suppose we can all tide ourselves over for a few more weeks," he stammered obsequiously, doing his best to get out of there as fast as possible, highly shocked to hear her, of all people, openly discussing in daylight what everyone had thought off as highly secretive business that was only spoken of in whispers in dimly lit hallways.

She allowed herself to smirk as he shut the door behind him. Men. So impatient. They only had to wait until the christening. That reminded her – she had a meeting later with Petaline about the party.

She had invited Petaline to come to her house this time and had given orders for Rance's hovercraft, recently repaired, to be used to fetch her for the meeting; she wanted to try and wean the little girl off the opinions of the other whores.

The open disdain was mostly gone, but Caroline still caught whispers of things being said behind her back. She knew some were willing to give her a chance, but others, like that tall blonde, Helen, who clearly acted as Petaline's second in command, was still hostile.

When Caroline had brought a small, tasteful rug for the room set up as the baby's nursery on one of her earlier visits about a month back she had mentioned she could have some of the contractors she had shipped in to lay the foundation of the church that was rapidly rising to come do some repairs on the Heart of Gold.

"My, my, gifts and promises," Helen had said frank skepticism. "How are lucky we?" she had snarked. "_Wo bu shin wo dah yan jing_!" she had said with sarcastic gratitude, silencing only when Petaline had given her a quelling look.

The last time Caroline had visited she had heard Helen whisper to one of the other girls, "Nandi said don't trust that _hudan _Burgess. I'm sure she would have said the same for his wife," thinking Caroline couldn't hear her.

_Nandi said, Nandi said_, Caroline thought to herself with exasperation, silently cursing her husband for turning Nandi into a martyr. She smirked slightly at the thought that followed: _Saint Nandi, patron saint of whores_. She chuckled at the absurd thought of the old brothel keeper rendered in stained glass with a halo around her head.

She pushed the thought of canonization of whores away and scrutinized the just slightly more legitimate business on the paper in front of her. Taking over her husband's holding had made her impressed all over again with his ability to mange and to make money. Never mind the frivolities he spent it on – he certainly had been able to convince other people to give him their money.

Now she just had to make sure it stayed that way. She had a meeting later that morning with some dealers interested in helping her expand Rance's business. The offer could be legitimate, or it could be another covert attempt at a hostile take over – she was going to have tread carefully.

She had expected to have to turn away men who would come, hat in hand and smiling duplicitously, trying to charm her into giving away her husband's holdings. She had politely told some that her property and business was not for sale; others needed a little more persuading, with the help of several of her most trusted and intimidating men to administer irrefutable proof of why they should never come back to Deadwood again.

Caroline was, however, surprised by the occasional suitors that showed up trying to woo her into the marriage bed rather than a business arrangement. She knew it was much the same thing either way, but these men she didn't send away quite as fast. It was nice to have a man on her arm now and then when she went out, or to occasionally sleep in a man's arms.

She accepted their sugared words and lying praise, not believing any of it, and graciously took the gifts of rare flowers or exotic fruits that they thought would flatter her, all the while knowing she would never again put a wedding ring on her finger.

Rance had proposed around the time the Unification treaty as being ratified in Parliament. The engagement ring had been a tasteful princess cut pale blue diamond in a silver band brought all the way from the Core in the standard black velvet box with the gold De Beers logo stamped on it.

On the traditional plain platinum wedding band he had engraved _my one and only love_. The wedding had been typical of the services held right after the war – small and quick, with none of the feasting and festivities that had been the norm before the war.

Greenleaf had paid dearly for supporting Unification. Throwing support to the Alliance was economics, plain and simple – the Independents had neither the money nor the resources needed to support the production of the many pharmaceuticals that could be extracted – with the right labor and equipment – from the rainforests of Greenleaf. The Alliance had only be too happy to have a place so far out in the Border to set up a presence with a guaranteed backing, unlike a lot of the other further out postings where they had to deal with both Independent forces as well as local resistance.

The Independents had approached Greenleaf with a if-we-can't-have-it-no-one-can attitude. The damage had been devastating and at the time Caroline had only been too happy to shake the bomb dust from her heels and leave.

Ashbury Pharmaceuticals was completely ruined by the war, as were a lot of other local businesses. The Alliance stepping in to help reset the damage done to the planet was at first met with joy, quickly followed by consternation as locals realized money was flowing directly back to companies in the Core as Core investors and Alliance run facilities set themselves up on Greenleaf, smoothly claiming it was all being done with everyone's best interest at heart.

The Alliance knew the gold mine they sat on, and guarded it fiercely. Only Alliance cargo ships for ferrying shipments out where allowed to land, or those passenger ships cleared to come to the treatment centers, some said to revival the best in the Core, although some did joke, that, depending on which experimental drug you got, it was a fifty / fifty chance whether you left in better condition than when you came, or found yourself with a green hair and sixteen toes.

The world slowly recovered, but despite the regrowth in the forests and factories, the original residents themselves never regained their pre-war status. The Alliance took a heavy percentage of any profits made in the form of "recovery taxes," said to be owed to their benevolent government as payment for cleaning up the mess the Browncoats had made, despite Greenleaf being an Allied supporter. Any profit leftover from that seemed to all go back to the supplies brought in from the Core and into the hands of the private Core businesses the Alliance had brought with them.

Rance had seemed like a shining white knight from an Earth-That-Was fairy tale when he stepped in at that point. He had managed to profit on the mining shares he had invested and moved up the ladder in wealth as her family had slipped down.

When he came to visit her that day, newly made magistrate of a newly colonized Rim moon, she had torn through every item in her closet and still the best thing she could find had been worn out and out of style.

But despite everything, she still had her background of good social standing – a polish of refinement that no amount of new money could buy. Her marriage with Rance had been an old story even back on Earth-That-Was – he had money and she had social standing. So why not an alliance to combine the two? She supposed he had thought she could bring some grace to the little moon he would run – or at least be something else he could show off.

She had initially been impressed by how much people deferred to him on Deadwood, but quickly realized the price of being back at the top of the social and economic ladder – at least on this little moon – was a complete lack of control. Rance was in charge and had no intention of sharing that power with anyone, not even his wife. He had been determined to stamp his name and force onto everything, and succeeded to such a point that he came to see any obstacles in his path as practically an abomination to both his will and the Almighty's.

She wondered if he had begun to lose his wits or had just listened to his own boasts for so long that he believed them. She suspected the later. He certainly seemed bent on making things happen just on his own say so. But you couldn't simply insist things into existence, otherwise young Madeline Grey-Withers who had caused such a scandal, the same year Caroline had turned seventeen and entered society, would have been able to simply insist the pregnancy out of existence while later Caroline could have insisted her own pregnancy into being when she and Rance had been trying so hard.

*********************************************************************

She prepared a proper high tea in her parlor to sit down to with Petaline. She had done some meditation before sitting down in the parlor to calm herself from the anger caused by meeting she had just had beforehand with her husband's lawyer, discussing some of the details about which accounts to use to pay for the church, now standing proud in town with a skeleton structure, with work beginning on the walls and roof.

At one point in the conversation the lawyer had remarked in a too casual tone, "You know, you'd be in complete control of Rance's holdings if something happened to that brat.

She had reared back like a cobra. "If that child gets so much as a scratch on him, I will see to it that you die a death worse than anything you could possibly imagine, _dong ma_?" she demanded, and something about the glare in her eye made the man visibly gulp, stammer apologies, and race out of the room as fast as he politely could.

By the time Petaline arrived with the child in question being carted about in the portable bassinette she had given her, Caroline was able to present a calm and smiling face.

However, the smile faltered quickly as the two women got into something of a debate over what surname to use as they planned the christening.

"You'll note that I am not trying to insist on the name Rance had lined up," said Caroline stiffly, trying to sound charitable.

"What name was that?" Petaline asked peevishly.

"Rance Burgess the Third," Caroline said with a hint of a sneer in her voice. "If that DNA test had come back saying you were having a daughter, I'm sure he would have just moved on to the next-" she caught herself at the last minute and hastily said, "girl," instead of 'whore.'

"Of course," she went on, "Rance was sure it was going to be a boy, even before that test came back he was boasting about his son to be. He knew God wanted him to have a boy." She rolled her eyes. "Anyway, my point is, for a first name, the name you picked out is lovely, but again, with my goal of stability in mind, the last name of Burgess would help with that. Words have power. God knows anyone in your position would know how a mere word can make you feel," she said, alluding to the many names she was sure the girls at the Heart of Gold had been called.

"There's nothing degrading about _my own name_," snapped Petaline. "My daddy, Tom Nolan, was a fine man, ain't nobody could say he did wrong 'fore the Red Cough took him, and I'd be proud to have my son be Jonah Nolan."

Years of practice allowed Caroline to keep from showing her frustration openly. She immediately dismissed the idea of using money on the issue. Money had been flat out rejected by both Petaline and that woman Nandi in the initial attempt to simply buy the child.

She remembered Rance ranting about it in the parlor that evening, pacing around with a drink in hand and screaming insults at the absent brothel owner and the knocked up girl for daring to defy him, for thinking _his_ money wasn't good enough for some _nothing_ of a whore.

So offering more money _now_ certainly wasn't going to change the girl's mind on the name.

She smiled a soft smile she had practiced a hundred times in the mirror to make sure she had achieved a look as non-threatening as possible for when the occasion called for it. "What about a compromise then, my dear? What if we were to hyphenate the two names? Jonah Nolan-Burgess. How does that sound?"

"I guess I could think on it some," said Petaline grudgingly.

"I know he is your son to name," said Caroline, forcing herself to clamp down on her irritation, "I'm just thinking long term, to keep things steady here, and to show the 'verse we are solid, so no _méiyôu mûqin de xiao gôu_ gets it into their heads that things are weak here and think they could just waltz in and sell this whole moon off for scrap."

She gave Petaline's knee a brief pat, "But you think on it," she said, hoping she wasn't overplaying it. She hoped that the fact that she was being absolutely honest would help as well.

*********************************************************************

Captain Malcolm Reynolds was sulking. There was no other word for his current state of being, although River had sing songed at breakfast that the captain smelled like Shakespeare laboring over the war between the sexes with a broken quill, and then she became engrossed in counting out a prime number of protein crackers before eating them, one by one.

The captain now restlessly moved around the cargo hold, triple checking that the boxes were in the same place they had been five minutes ago. They were on their way to Haven, always good for a deal of smuggled goods, although they hadn't been their in a while, definitely not since before Book and the Tams had been on board. There would have been no work there for Inara – not that it mattered now.

Haven was a rough and tumble little moon in the western Qing Long system, known for its retired criminal population. Mal had been waved by the forewoman of the colony, a woman who he had made several cargo runs for in the past, who was an extremely fair dealer – so fair that he often felt like he was being scolded like a little boy whenever he tried his usual style of bs haggling.

She made a deal with him to deliver a passenger – a thief tired of running from the Alliance and ready to settle down and do some honest work mining in a place that didn't care about people's pasts. The forewoman confidently told Mal she knew he could avoid any Alliance patrols along the way.

Mal had agreed, but hadn't really been comfortable with the agreement until after they had picked up the man on New Brisbane, narrowly avoiding an Alliance patrol boat, and he had bluntly told River to sit down at the dining room table and 'talk with the nice man and tell me if he wants to hurt us.'

Simon had unsurprisingly squawked at the command, but River just danced her way into the dining room and asked the man what kind of cake he liked, which segued into a whole conversation about pastries, which the man affably went along with.

River told Mal that the man was covered in gray and green and asked if he could stay for dinner. Mal took this to mean their current passenger wasn't going to try and kill and/or kidnap anyone, or try and hijack the ship, and told Wash to chart a quick and Alliance free course to Haven.

He hoped to do some other business there as well – he had a shipment of protein packs he hoped to unload. Mal was confident enough of Wash's dodging ability that he anticipated this whole deal actually going through – which they were in sore need of, after their latest run of bad luck.

Thinking about how little profit they had seen lately made Mal's bad mood increase and he snapped at Jayne, currently lifting weights, "Those cords on the Mule are way to lose. I told you when you put it away last time it's gotta be more secure if we don't want this thing to bounce around here like a pin ball when we hit atmo!"

"You'd think this thing _was_ an actual baby," grumbled Jayne, referring to the nickname Mal had given the new hover Mule when they had bought it, raving at useful it was going to be, having both ground and hover ability, as well as a lot more room and storage and towing capacity than the old Mule.

Jayne reluctantly put down his weights and came over to assist Mal with stringing some more cords onto the Mule.

"We spent good coin on this," admonished Mal, "Don't want to waste it."

The last time they'd seen profit was when they had finally managed to find a buyer for the Lassiter, and most of that had gone towards buying the new hover Mule.

"Wouldn't have needed to spend the coin if we hadn't lost the old Mule," pointed out Jayne, toeing right up to the line of Too Far, and too annoyed to care.

"Not. My. Fault," Mal ground out between clenched teeth, and then began the old rant, "There were absolutely no signs posted anywhere! Not a single notice on the local Cortex waves! How was I supposed to know that it was an illegal parking spot! It was fine when I left it during the day! How was I supposed to know the deal was going to go south and I wouldn't be able to go back until after nightfall when all the vehicles on the street are supposed to magically disappear somewhere?!"

Mal angrily snapped a line into place, pulling harder than necessary on a lever. As much as the new Mule was his pride and joy, it still rankled that the old Mule had been irrevocably lost to an Alliance impound lot.

Even if they'd had the coin at the time to pay for the fines for the illegal parking, the lack of proper stickers for parking on that particular moon, the towing fees, and the impound fees - which they hadn't – it had finally been considered to dangerous to get that close to the Alliance, and the Mule had been had to be left behind, no doubt already sold at government auction by now.

There had been a very brief spell of solvency after buying the new Mule when they had successfully – an almost completely by accident – managed to steal some valuable techware, but the money from the sale had been confiscated by an Alliance operative.

However, as much as losing the money hurt, since the man had initially been after Zoe for war crimes committed back when she still thought they had a chance of accomplishing something, losing the money hurt a hell of a lot less than losing Zoe would have.

This had been followed by a botched robbery that had ended with no money and Book punching Mal in the face. Next they had been set up by Badger, who pushed them into a trap set up by the Hands of Blue and that old lawman, Dobson.

Mal had thought he had managed to kill him back on Whitefall, but instead it turned out he had only left him with a nasty scar and an unhealthy obsession with returning the favor. Mal had wasted a few extra bullets on him this time round – just to be sure.

And now they were out one middleman, unable to look to Badger for any future work, and Inara had made a haughty exit to go teach at one of the Guild's newer Border training houses. Mal was uncomfortably aware that after their milk run to Deadwood, they were probably going to have to turn to the even less appealing middlemen of Fanty and Mingo for jobs that would bring in some actual profit.

The trip out to Haven had been long enough that Mal had just about run out of chores to assign to people and was at the point was he was ready to make people do things over. After this morning's breakfast he had somewhat randomly assigned people different parts of the ship to clean out, making a rather pompous speech about the need for cleanliness and such, earning him a lot of looks, some pitying (Kaylee), some exasperated (Jayne) and some looking at him wondering if he had finally lost his mind (Wash and Zoe in silent stereo).

As he needlessly tightened a rope holding down some containers, Kaylee came out of Shuttle 2 - _not_ Inara's shuttle anymore, Mal reminded himself – waving a dust rag when she saw her fearless captain in the hold. "Capt'n!" she called excitedly. "Inara left a box of her things in her shuttle! It's a truck with some of her outfits and some shiny jewelry and there's a crossbow in there. Remember how she told us she used to do archery back at her old training house in the Core? Don't you think she'll want that stuff back? Should we-"

"If Inara left one of her boxes of dress-ups here, than that's her look out," interrupted Mal, doing his best to sound authoritative rather than irritable.

"But couldn't we just swing by the training house she's teaching at on Juneau? That moon's only a hop, skip and a jump away from Melrose, and we make runs there a lot!" said Kaylee hopefully, eyes pleading.

"She wants it, she can wave me- us," said Mal firmly, trying very hard not to think of the last time he saw Inara, and failing, his treacherous memory playing out Inara's leave-taking, and his stony silence when he had glared at her and refused to either tell her goodbye – or beg or to stay.

Once they landed on Haven, they delivered their passenger and Mal was able to sell the protein packs at a reasonable price, though not quite as high as he would have liked. They stayed for a couple days extra so Kaylee could do some mechanic repairs around the colony in exchange for some fresh fruits, vegetables and water.

Everyone enjoyed the feeling of land beneath their feet and blue sky above, especially River and Simon, with no worries of being arrested in a colony full of criminals and fugitives, all in sympathy with those in trouble with the Alliance.

When they prepared to leave, Book announced his intention to stay behind. Mal found himself trying to conjure up a reason to convince the itinerant shepherd to stay, but couldn't come up with anything that felt compelling, especially since plenty of the local miners were spiritual folk who would welcome a preacher in their midst.

As everyone said their final goodbyes, Kaylee cried almost as hard as when Inara had left, and Jayne, obviously respectful of the man of God, was downright polite in his goodbyes.

"Can't say I'll miss your prayers overmuch, but you're gonna miss the Christening," said Mal lamely. "We'll be going back to see Petaline and her kid soon."

Book smiled and said, "Give them both my best wishes."

"The 'verse ain't a place of wishes," grumbled Mal as he headed back to the ship.

*****

**Transaltions**

**Mandarin:**

_méiyôu mûqin de xiao gôu_ - motherless cur

_dong ma? – _understand?

_hudan_ - bastard

_da sha gua_ - fool, idiot

_Wo bu shin wo dah yan jing_ – I can hardly believe my eyes


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

*********************************************************************

**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Five**

The passenger carrier arrived from the Border the day before Landing Day, the ship setting down just outside of town, next to the cargo ship that landed the night before, still unloading the supplies that Caroline had ordered from the Border for her house, business, the new church, and a few things for the baby, including a tiny silver spoon with his name engraved on it that she planned to present at the christening party as her official gift as godmother.

Caroline personally greeted the bureaucratic passengers who disembarked with a gracious smile and gave them welcome, exclaiming her humble salutations, and remarking that it was such an honor that such fine officers of the Alliance were gracing her poor world, giving a brief curtsy to the leader of Deadwood, Magistrate Seth Young.

She was able to muster up much more sincerity for her greeting to the new preacher, Reverend Mark Kell, a gangly young man with a prominent Adam's apple, who seemed terribly earnest in his enthusiastic greeting. The only betrayal of his nerves about the new situation was how tightly he clutched his Bible, the knuckles slightly white as he kept the book in his grasp at all times, like a nervous toddler holding a teddy bear. She doubted he had ever been off world before.

She lead the group to the office in town where Deadwood's magistrate was supposed to run things – although Rance had always done most of his work at the house. Once the group arrived in the office, immediately filling up the rather dusty room to the gills, the deputy, young Armand, one of the Dumont boys, jumped to his feet and smiled as Caroline made the introductions.

"_Tyen shiao duh_, it's about time," he said thankfully. "Everyone's been pressing for decisions on stuff and taking it real _personal_ if I don't decide for 'em."

Magistrate Young made the kind of bright, full toothed smile that Caroline had honestly thought was only possible in Cortex commercials after digital enhancement, and he portentously explained, half to Armand, half to the mid-level Alliance bureaucrats in tow, "Which is _exactly_ why cross-fertilization of official positions is necessary – so the political does not become personal again. Elections of locals to local positions can only follow after the proper education has spread and taken root to the reaches of the Rim, eliminating the _code duello_ attitude that still, unfortunately, resides out here."

The others nodded sycophantly while Caroline processed his words behind a polite mask of attentive listening; it sounded as though the Alliance was seeing just how far back they could push those promised free elections.

She showed Magistrate Young the house nearby that she had arranged for him and his wife to rent. Now that she saw the extent of their luggage and the size of their entourage, quite separate from the Alliance officials who simply there for the official appointment of the position, she could see why he had specified a large residence.

After the tour of the office and house, and a brief tour of the main parts of the town, she invited everyone to come with her and Deadwood's new preacher to inspect his new home, and of course she understood when most of the Alliance personnel declined, stating they had to ask a few questions of people in the area and some inspections of their own to make, but she absolutely insisted that they all come to her home that evening for dinner.

She happily took the young man of God by the arm to show him his new church, leaving the government officials to their work, exactly like a woman who had nothing in the worlds to hide.

The young Revered Kell was complimentary in his tour of the church and vicarage, more so when she told him how quickly it had been built. She showed him around town, pointing out the sites – such as they were – and listening with proper devout-looking attention as he eagerly outlined his plan for getting the community involved in church activities and she put in a point now and then, advising on how best to hold the people's attention.

She faltered slightly when he brought up the subject of Rance.

"I am sorry to hear your husband was killed recently," he told her as they walked down the main street. He gave her sad smile, "The brevity of life out on the Rim should make us all appreciate God's gifts all the more so."

She almost missed a step, shocked for a moment without knowing why. As she responded with thanks for his sympathy she realized it was because almost no one else had mentioned Rance Burgess since he had died, as if he never was. Would that happen to her someday? She resolutely threw off the melancholy thought, continuing the tour with a cheerfulness she didn't feel, and then hastily excused herself to oversee the dinner preparations.

She pulled out all the stops for the dinner she threw that evening for the new arrivals to Deadwood. She had most of the household servants working in the kitchen all day, and ended up using nearly every single dish she owned for the numerous courses, featuring everything from savory buttered asparagus to sweet frosted _zongzis_. On the table itself each place setting held multiple plates, bowls, utensils, and glasses.

She had invited a select group of Deadwood's finest society, such as it was, and everyone on and off the guest list knew it. The O'Shea's and Li's both tired to monopolize the conversation, while Mrs. Wooster's oldest daughter, Madeline, visibly sulked after she realized the magistrate was already married, and, once again, made a fruitless try at getting the oldest Dumont boy's attention.

Mr. Singh inquired about the latest political news from the Core, while Mrs. Singh asked about the newest fashions, theatrically sighing as she admired Mrs. Young's dress, an original Junghong, brought in all the way from New Paris.

Caroline talked very little through out the proceedings, instead, using the dinner as a chance to get to know the new magistrate. Seth Young was not much too look at, being only of medium height and build and, though only just approaching middle age, already balding.

By the end of the dinner conversation, Caroline was fairly sure she had an accurate assessment of what she was dealing with. The magistrate saw Deadwood as a stepping stone, and he intended to be here only as long as it took to use his position to leverage into a higher one back in the Border, and eventually get as close to the Core as possible. He wanted to climb the Alliance's political ladder as fast and as high as he could.

In the meantime, Young wanted to be sure he didn't go native while out here in the wild and wooly Rim. His assorted luggage included boxes and crates of personal possessions and furniture, and he had brought with him attendants, assistants, a personal chef, and bond slaves.

He smoked Zhongnanhai cigarettes, distinctive with its bright red wrapping and gold stamp lettering; they must have been shipped out with great expense all the way from Sihnon; most folks out on the Rim, and most of the Border too, either made do with home made cigarettes or the cheap mass produced Blue Sun brands made from the tobacco fields that covered the moons of Morrow and New Bermuda.

Meanwhile, his wife, Zhisha, had brought her own luggage and her own attendants, as well as a pack of yappy little dogs named after characters on Cortex soaps. Caroline hated them on sight – although she did her best to hide her discomfiture at the rat sized canines.

He had dragged all the comforts of civilization with him, and Caroline maliciously wished him luck at keeping the dirt out of everything.

At one point during the dinner he told her rather pompously, "Our daughter, Melissa, has just been accepted to House Aragona, the main Companion training house on Bernadette, one of _the_ most exclusive of the Guild's schools."

Caroline took a sip of wine to giver herself a moment to compose her mouth into a congratulatory smile, keeping her mouth full of the not-potent-enough alcohol to keep herself from saying anything sarcastic in response to his condescension. He seemed to think of her as much of a hick as the rest of the denizens of Deadwood – it might prove useful to let him keep that illusion for the time being.

* * *

The next day she summoned Chari early on to help with her dress preparations. Caroline had switched Chari's position from kitchen worker to that of a personal maid after the cook had complained that the girl was an absolute failure at anything culinary. So bad was she that the cook, a devout Taoist, was sure Chari must have done something to offend the deity Zào Jūn. The cook, Zhang, had threatened to quit if Chari wasn't removed form the kitchen, absolutely sure that Chari's bad karma would infect him as well.

Caroline, worried that she might lose Zhang and his beautifully prepared _kig ha farz_, hastily made Chari a personal maid. Chari proved to be quite good at helping to maintain Caroline's clothes and hair, which, considering what she had been doing for a living, didn't surprise Caroline.

Caroline had Chari do her hair for the event, twisting a long strand of black pearls into her braid that she had Chari pin into an auburn crown around her temple with silver hairpins. She donned a long dark blue silk cheongsam with white cranes embroidered into the silk, decorating the cloth from neck to ankle. She sat at her vanity and closed her eyes, letting Chari administer the of makeup, her application of powder, gloss and polish as delicate as butterfly wings fluttering against her face.

When she was finished, Caroline walked over to the full-length mirror and carefully examined the final result. The girl knew her work – the makeup took away at least five years, or at least made her face much more presentable. Her eyes were still a vivid blue, brightened by the edging of kohl, and the hair Chari had so carefully put in place still shone its natural red, the dark pearls contrasting with the auburn shade.

She reminded herself that sneering would muss her makeup as she reflected that Rance's once red hair had already turned an ageing yellow-grey. Any and all words he had ever said to her about her age could have just as easily been hurled back at him. Not that she ever would have; growing up she had learned that a member of polite society never said out loud what everyone was thinking, and early on in her marriage she had learned Rance was not interested in a woman with opinions.

The dress she put on now was at least able to show off a slim figure; she had no need to swath herself in kilometers of cloth to try and hide flabby limbs or an apple shaped torso, like so many women her age had. A perk, she thought sourly, to having had no children. She was, she thought somewhat despairingly, downright bony; she may have been thin but she had none of the curves men preferred to go with slenderness - she was all sharp corners.

Caroline practiced a warm smile in the mirror, telling herself that diamonds had sharp corners too. A diamond survived an epoch of tremendous pressure and came out something beautiful; she was no less than that. She calmly walked out to go to the christening of her husband's bastard, repeating to herself over and over _I am a diamond_.

For a finishing touch she strapped a two-holster gun belt to her hip, choosing to carry both her husband's laser pistol and a Beretta 2450 – the traditional weapon of choice for young ladies of quality back on Greenleaf.

* * *

_**Meanwhile, at the Heart of Gold:**_

"I'm so glad you could make!" Petaline said brightly as the crew of _Serenity _made their way up to the front door, all laden down with boxes. They had timed it pretty close, only just touching down as Landing Day dawned on Deadwood.

Most of the house was already outside, meeting the crew right outside _Serenity'_s cargo bay doors – eager to get the supplies Petaline had ordered, but almost as eager to see the crew that had lent them so much help a few months ago.

Simon was made much of by the girls, several repeating their thanks for his help with Jonah's birth, and quite a few of the girls asked about getting a health check with him, with just enough innuendo in their voices to make Simon blush and stammer – more so when the girls realized how they were embarrassing him, and kicking up the teasing a few notches until Helen sharply ordered them to cut it out.

"Too many cookies make you sick," sing-songed River.

Ignoring all of the unfamiliar people in the cargo hold, she told Simon, "Kaylee let me help cook today."

"That's nice," said Simon, thankful that Kaylee was already bringing some of the smaller mechanical parts to help fix the more antiquated parts of the Heart of Gold and hadn't seen him surrounded by a group of _xiaojie_.

Seriously, River lectured to him, "Twas God the Word that spake it. He took the bread and break it. And what the Word did make it, that I believe and take It."

Some of the girls giggled nervously, others gave Simon looks of pity, realizing that the little girl was obviously touched in the head. River grabbed Simon by the hand, chatter excitedly about wanting to see if the air outside was still made of oxygen.

Inside the Heart of Gold, Petaline repeated her thanks for the cargo run. "We don't get many ponies out here," she said.

The Pony Express, the Alliance's postal carrier system of a fleet of tiny, fast ships, Paquin Zero Ningzhi Y-1100's, called 'ponies' by most everyone, was supposed to service the entirety of the settled worlds, from Sihnon to St. Albans's, but, like so many of the Alliance's promises, the reality had fallen far short of the promise.

"Where's Nandi's friend?" asked Petaline curiously as they unpacked the first of the boxes in the office / parlor room.

"And the shepard?" asked one of the other girls.

Mal tried not to wince at the mention of both Nandi and Inara. "The shepard sends his best," he said with forced cheerfulness. "He's busy setting up a new church further out in the Rim."

Zoe shot him a Look, sharp and blunt as laser cannon fire.

"And Inara's got her work, but she sent some gifts," he mumbled ungraciously.

The unloading was done quickly, since everyone was in a hurry to get to the church for the Christening. Once the cargo hold was empty, the whole crew rushed back to their bunks to change into the outfits they owned that could pass for "Sunday best."

Wash exchanged his usual tropical patterns for a muted dark blue dress shirt with matching slacks and Zoe acquiesced to actually wear the only dress she owned, a white dress with brown diagonal strips – the dress she had worn for their wedding.

Jayne had the same stripped shirt he had worn on their last visit to Deadwood, and, from the way he had craned his neck around at the Heart of Gold girls, hoped from some time off.

The captain put on a clean flannel shirt and his least dirt stained pair of pants.

River was in one the short dresses that Kaylee had lent her, this one in dark purple. Kaylee managed to convince River that pulling her hair back in a ribbon wouldn't damage her hair's civil liberties – Kaylee managed to convince her that hair wanted to dress up for a party, just like anyone else, and so River let her fix her hair.

Kaylee herself wore a bright yellow sundress, secretly hoping for some attention from the doctor, but her plan to act more "sophisticated" when he saw her in a dress for the first time since Badger and his gang hijacked the ship went on hold when she saw Simon and had to concentrate just on not letting her mouth hang open.

Over the past months Simon had been on board she'd gotten so used to seeing him in the dressed down style of the loose pants and tunics that it was quite a shocker to see him back in the stiff black suit she had first seen him in. She wondered if med-school included classes on starching and ironing, or if it was the stiffness of his ownself that came out when he was nervous that made the suit crisp as paper.

"Ok folks, let's go and get this over with," said Mal ungraciously as they gathered in the hold to head out and meet the group outside the Heart of Gold getting ready to head out to the church. "I got a less than legal shipment of Syngrass burning a hole in my cargo hold that needs to be on Belgravia yesterday.

The shipment of Syngrass in the hold, a product in and of itself perfectly legal, had been through some less than legal channels, and needed to be delivered to some colonists who wanted to avoid the hassle of red tape that came with getting just about any genetically modified product out to a new colony.

The grass was engineered to be long lasting, grow in almost any environment, packed full of nutrients, and perfect for cropping animals, especially cattle.

The company's slogan of: "The Greener Grass" was stamped all over the boxes and underneath the company name, written in characters out of stylized blades of grass.

"But capt'n, we gotta stay for the party after!" protested Kaylee.

"Grocery runs like this don't pay to keep my boat in the sky," reminded Mal, more sharply than he had meant to. "I've got that appointment with those two _yuho nánháizi_, Fanty and Mingo, to keep, so if you want all those shiny new parts you keep telling me _Serenity_ needs, then don't expect to stay at the party too long."

Kaylee grumbled something about grouchy old anti-social captains under her breath but brightened as they joined the new group, and, everyone chattering amiably, headed off to the church.

They Heart of Gold girls were all dressed as primly and properly as even the strictest etiquette teacher could wish. Petaline was wearing an amber colored dress that fell to her feet - the very picture of matronly decorum. She was holding Jonah in her arms, dressed in a white waterfall of lace and silk. Petaline looked tired, but extremely happy, and brimming with confidence.

Most of the crew noted the world of difference between the nervous little girl clutching her baby three months ago and the confident young leader here.

* * *

The church filled up with people from town, with the girls from the Heart of Gold, the officials that had journeyed with the new magistrate, his attendants, and _Serenity_'s crew.

Caroline took her at the front with Petaline, the baby, and the young man dressed in Core fashion standing as godfather.

Petaline had mentioned that she asked Captain Reynolds ship doctor to be godfather to Jonah. His manner and words when he took his part in the ceremony confirmed that he was originally from somewhere deep in the Core. Caroline suspected that a long but quick fall from grace had lead the young doctor (if he was even a real doctor, and not some failed med student) to go from the highest Core echelons to working a firefly out on the Rim.

Love was probably involved, she mused, as the ceremony went on. And the kind of mistakes that are so easy to make, and so impossible to undo. Possibly a high ranking family or some corporate police were out for his blood. Considering how unforgiving Core society cold be, it was probably just as well he was hiding way out here.

Gazing out at the pews as the reverend spoke of love and learning, she spotted the rest of Reynolds' crew sitting together. Caroline didn't see the striking dark haired girl who had been with him when she had met him, but didn't give it much thought.

After the christening she saw several of her men spoke quietly with Petaline's girls, obviously making arrangements for later that night, losing no time now that the ban was officially lifted. Chari's little side venture looked like it was about to take a dip in business.

She attended the party afterwards, part Landing Day celebration, with fireworks and lanterns, and part birthday party with cake and plenty of drinks. One of Petaline's girls knew how to make beer, and a table creaked slightly under the weight of a barrel with a tap for anyone to help themselves to the hoppy brew.

A young girl who introduced herself to Caroline as the ship's mechanic offered wine – "My very own recipe!" she said proudly. Caroline took a glass and, expecting the sharp vinegar like taste of engine brew, managed not to gag on the sharp taste but instead smile and give the girl thanks for the drink.

As the evening sky went from pink to orange to red to purple to black girls started disappearing into the house with various members of Caroline's employ. She smirked, she'd given most of her workers the day and the night off – officially for Landing Day, but unofficially for everyone to let off steam.

As she began to think about leaving she found herself talking with Captain Reynolds himself. He very awkwardly gave his condolences for her husband's death.

She gave him a brief up and down look, thinking back to when she had met him those three months back and how he and her husband had traded barbs like they were a hero and a villain in a clichéd spy _diànyng._

Caroline guessed Reynolds was an ex-Browncoat, and still looking to let out his aggression towards the Alliance any way he could. He probably had seen lots of fighting during the war – and after as well, but, judging by his current unease, she was sure he had very little experience with cleaning up the messes men like him made – and she couldn't resist needling him slightly for it.

She accepted his condolences and then said, "It is a pity things got so out of hand. My husband's problem was an occasional lack of… finesse. After all, when your only tool is a hammer, you treat every problem as one to be _nailed_, eh captain?"

"I have been in a few situations that weren't solved by diplomacy," he agreed neutrally.

She nodded. "A loaded gun can achieve quite a lot. What's the old saying from Earth-That-Was? Happiness is a warm gun?"

"Warm guns tend to leave a trail of cold corpses," he said with a frown.

"True. What a pity that trail followed us here from Earth-That-Was."

The captain gave her a look, scrutinizing for what her subtext might be, but finally gave up and excused himself back to the party.

As the party was winding down now, Caroline politely made a round of goodbyes, graciously accepting compliments and giving them. She rode back home well pleased with how the whole effort had come off.

When she came home, after stabling the horse, she walked into the mostly dark and empty house, since most were still either celebrating Landing Day and / or the Heart of Gold's re-opening.

She heard an odd noise echoing in the foyer. She followed it to the first floor bathroom and pushed open the door to see Chari hunched over the toilet bowl, throwing up.

It was just as well Chari did not hear her come in nor see the extremely cold smile that flashed across Caroline's face, quickly replaced by a stoic look.

When the girl had finished heaving her guts, Caroline cleared her throat imperiously.

Chari looked up, looking haggard and scared. A tiny noise of fear came from the back of her throat.

"Clean yourself up and then come and see me," ordered Caroline, and left Chari where she kneeled on the cold tiles.

Caroline went to her study and took a seat grandly, waiting with eager anticipation, but careful to keep a stern mask of displeasure in place.

Chari came in shortly and stood there quietly, trembling slightly, eyes wide, looking like a rabbit about to be run over by a skimmer.

"Now, is there something you want to tell me?" asked Caroline in a voice that implied she would tolerate no lies. She casually picked up the shock-whip and toyed with it idly.

"Please…Madam, please don't…." Chari whimpered, tears coming down her face, "Please not that!" She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Please don't!" she pleaded tearfully.

"Why not?" Caroline asked, as if it was merely a question of academic interest to her.

"I'm pregnant," whispered Chari, staring down at her bare feet.

Chari was not allowed shoes. Caroline followed the tradition of not giving shoes to bond slaves, as it was felt bare feet helped deter escape attempts. Shoes were one of the items on the very long list of things that Chari's contract prohibited.

Being caught with contraband meant numerous strokes from the shock-whip, which Caroline always kept fully charged. Chari had already been dealt several punishments for trying to break the rules.

"Good," was Caroline's response to Chari's announcement.

Chari's head snapped up in surprise, her eyes wide with shock.

Caroline continued in a brisk voice, "I'll take eight years off your indenture and _considerably_ lighten up your workload if you agree to sign all parental rights to the child over to me when it's born."

Chari's mouth dropped open. That would leave only a year of indenture after she gave birth. "Same wages we agreed on?" she asked shrewdly, quickly recovering from her tears and shock.

Caroline barely suppressed a sneer. She paused, thinking it over, and then said, "Agreed. But you will sign a new contract I will draw up agreeing both to give me the baby and that while pregnant you will adhere to a strict regime. You will ingest no drugs or alcohol of any kind nor indulge in any behavior that I deem potentially dangerous or unhealthy for the baby. Keep in mind, you will be getting ten years worth of salary in exchange for less than two years work – which, from now on, three months in, will be very light, so I expect you to comply."

"Yes, Madam," said Chari meekly, seemingly cowed in the face of Caroline Burgess in negotiation mode.

Caroline narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. She would take nothing this girl said at face value. She made a note to prepare a room the girl could be locked into if the need arose.

* * *

**Translations  
**

**Mandarin:**

_Tyen shiao duh_ – name of all that's holy

_Zongzis_ – rice dumplings with sweet or savory fillings

_Xiaojie_ – semi-polite term for 'prostitute'

_yuho nánháizi _– pretty boy

_diànyng – _movie

**French:**

_kig ha farz – _French pork dumplings


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

**A/N**: WARNING: Here comes the BDM, folks.

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**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Six**

_"I'm going to grant you your greatest wish. I'm going to show you a world without sin." _And Mal hit the button to start the transmission, forcing the Operative to watch the recording.

********************************************************************

And all across the 'verse, on a myriad of channels, the local programming was overridden by an illegal broadcast, spreading the news everywhere.

And in a little dive bar in New Bangkok.

And at the Alliance post office on the Liwei Space Station.

And in a posh hair salon at the Blue Sun Shiba Triplex.

And in nearly every theater on Paquin.

And the casinos on Santos.

And on every functioning screen in the junkyards of Verbena.

And in almost every university on Osiris.

And on screens and monitors, big and small, public and private, moons, planets, space stations, ships - the signal was broadcasted.

And everyone learned the truth.

********************************************************************

Caroline had taken Chari off world for a health check. The birth was going to be at home, but she was having monthly check ups done at a nearby health clinic a few hours flight over in the Xuan Wu system. There were some ships in the area that ran passengers and cargo in between the two systems, and Caroline didn't mind paying out the extra coin to get a stop on Deadwood, especially since it made bringing in more goods easier.

Now Caroline and Chari sat with a few other passengers in the semi-comfortable passenger lounge next to the cargo bay of the _Yujinhua_ as they headed back out, Deadwood just an hour and half a way.

Caroline quietly hummed under her breath with pleasure. The latest health check had revealed that the baby was doing well and healthy, and was going to be a girl. She was so happy at the news of having a daughter of her own that she told Chari she was going to add an extra bonus of 30% of her total bond wages. Chari's eyes had gleamed at that.

The health clinic was located on Tiberius – closer to the Border, with more goods readily available. Caroline bought more maternity clothes for Chari as Chari's midsection was rapidly growing, and she bought crates more of the recommend foods, of the best tasting she could acquire, and ordered things she would need for the baby.

Caroline found herself enjoying ordering baby things this time round, picking things of better taste than her husband had selected, enjoying the thought of _Mine_.

At the first health check a few months back she had the DNA tested to find out the parentage.

The child wasn't Rance's, much to her relief.

The blood tied to the file of one of her workers – one of the many who had enjoyed the services of Chari during the ban. She quickly destroyed all of her copies of the information, and burned through quite a lot of cash in bribes to makes sure the clinic destroyed their records as well. It helped that Chari had taken so many 'clients' that it would be unlikely that any one of them would think the child theirs.

As an extra precaution, she had then seen to it that the worker who had fathered the child got a very good job offer off world, one of the farming planets back in the Border. She had cloaked the opportunity to be sure he left without suspecting it had been arranged by her, instead proudly thinking he was important enough that someone would have picked him due to his own merit for the relatively easy job that was offered. She made sure it was a ripe enough offering that he would take it without looking back; Caroline wanted to be sure there would be no else wanting to claim the baby when the birth came.

She had considered bringing Chari to an Alliance hospital somewhere in the Border for the birth itself, perhaps on Persephone or Beaumonde, but rejected the idea for two reasons – one, she didn't feel things were settled enough on Deadwood to risk leaving for an extended period of time, and two, an Alliance hospital brought with it paperwork that might prove bothersome.

Claiming the child as completely her own would be easier to do with a home birth. Any paperwork she filled in later could be done with the right names put down without anything like the truth getting in the way.

When she applied for her daughter's Social Control Number it would be easy enough to put down Caroline Ashbury and Rance Burgess as the mother and father, if she wished. She highly doubted anyone would be looking at her husband's death date and her daughter's birth date at the same time, and if they did, so what? Lots of babies were born a month or so late.

She shuffled through some business paperwork she had brought with for the flight and pulled out a blank sheet of paper

She wrote down a list of names and their meanings, contemplating what would best fit:

Jiao – _beauty_

Belinda – _treasure_

Zhu – _pearl_

Sarah – _princess_

Xue – _purity_

Sophia – _wisdom_

She had always thought of her own stillborn child as 'Perdita' – _lost_, even though Rance had always insisted not to think on it at all, that _it_ had just been a mistake, a fluke, that _of course_ there would be _real _children soon enough. But then he had lost patience, and left her bed to seek others.

She brought herself back to the present, pondering what to name her daughter. She smiled. She so enjoyed that phrase, _her daughter_. Hers and no one else's. She may not have the DNA claim that Rance had used, but what good had that done him in the end? Besides, when all was said and sifted it was all just a good deed she was doing. She was saving the baby.

She glanced over at Chari, sitting on the couch with an e-Reader, absorbed in a cheap romance story. As she read she sipped at a vanilla flavored protein shake, a magazine at her elbow that she had been perusing earlier of all the shiny things she intended to buy when her bond ended and she received her wages and bonus. She had already jotted notes down of different places she might like to go, mentioning to Caroline she had heard New Vegas was a great place to start out if you had a little capital.

Chari was not fit to be mother, thought Caroline, anyone could see that. Caroline smiled as she wrote down more names, pleased to know she could convince just about anyone of the goodness of her actions.

The screen in the passenger lounge, currently broadcasting a nature program on the unique ecosystems of New Darwin, was rudely interrupted with a loud _bzzt_ of electronic interference, and a suddenly a young woman in an Alliance flight suit appeared in the middle of the screen. A handful of smaller images of dead people, lying in streets like litter, surrounded her.

"_These are just a few of__ the few images we've recorded_," the woman said sadly.

"_And you can see..._" More, and then more, images of dead people, lying on streets and in transport vehicles and draped on floors and in chairs, were displayed. "_It isn't what we thought_."

"Ew," said Chari. "What _is_ this?"

Impatiently, Caroline fiddled with the controls, but the woman appeared everywhere – whoever was broadcasting the mournful woman had overridden all channels.

Other passengers, and some of the crew, tried to change the screen as well, to no avail, and no one could take their eyes away as the woman continued showing more images of what looked like an Alliance sponsored colony, a pre-fabricated city in the super light and strong (and expensive) building materials that could be shipped across the 'verse and used to build an entire city almost overnight.

The city looked abandoned, with slightly decomposing people everywhere, and with no signs of anyone coming to claim their dead.

"_There's been no war here_," the woman went on sadly, fear in her eyes, "_and no terraforming event. The environment is stable_." Her lips trembled, in fear or sorrow, it was hard to tell. She looked down as she took a shaky breath, a slight sob in the back of her throat.

She looked back up and stared straight ahead as she said: "_It's the Pax__. __The G-Paxilon Hydroclorate__that __**we**__ added__ to the air processors_."

Caroline froze, feeling as if someone had dumped ice water into her veins.

"What the_ tyen shiao du__h_-" began someone, but Caroline made an angry 'shush' noise as the woman on the screen continued.

"_It was supposed to calm__ the population_," the woman explained, "_weed out aggression_." She took another breath, and her voice got less steady, tears springing to her eyes.

"_Well, it works. __The people here__ stopped fighting.__ And then they stopped__ everything else_."

The screen flickered, suggesting some damage to the recording.

"_They stopped going to work...__they stopped breeding,__ talking, eating.__ There's 30 million people__ here, and they all just __let themselves die_."

There was a collective gasp of shock from around the room. From the screen there was a savage scream from somewhere outside the recorder's view, and those watching flinched along with the woman.

"_I have to be quick_," she said in a scared voice as banging noises off screen got louder. She gulped and went on, "_About a tenth __of a percent of the population had__ the opposite reaction__ to the Pax.__Their aggressor response__ increased beyond madness.__ They have become_..."

The noise behind her grew louder, sounding as though someone was trying to tear a metal door off its hinges.

"_They, well, they've killed__ most of us.__ And not just killed... they've _done_ things_." She turned her head to the left briefly and gasped in fear as the screams got louder, closer.

"_I won't live to report this_," she stammered, "_but people have to know.__ We meant it for the best," _she said tearfully. "_To make people safer_."

The screams and metal noises got louder and louder. There was a crash and several creatures, only barely recognizable as human, rushed on screen.

"_Oh God!_" she screamed in pure panic and terror.

She whipped out a gun and fired in their direction a few times, then pressed the barrel to her own head, but she was too late. The creatures, the people she had spoke of being affected violently by the drug the scientists had put in the air processors, attacked her, grabbing her limbs, tearing at her flesh and clothes.

The screaming went on and on, then abruptly stopped, and the recording began again at the beginning.

People in the lounge began to talk in a frightened babble, demanding of each other just what they had seen. Someone began fiddling with the controls again, but the woman's message continued to play and replay on all channels.

Someone finally ripped some power cords out to stop the sound of the woman's screams, but everyone else's voices continued, trying to figure out what was going on. Everyone putting forth theories and speculations.

Everyone, that is, except Caroline.

Caroline stood silent in the middle of the babbling and panicked frenzy as the words: '_The G-Paxilon Hydroclorate__that __**we**__ added__ to the air processors'_ replayed in her head over and over. "You idiots," she whispered, although she wasn't quite sure who she was addressing.

But she knew what that drug was. Who, from her old society circle on Greenleaf, _didn't_ know about it? Several years before the war she remembered everyone had talked about, at dinner parties, tea parties, at board meetings, all chattering excitedly about the new drug about to hit the market. Pharmaceuticals was the life blood of Greenleaf's society, and any new drug inventions were always the main source of talk of the colony, but this was something bigger than normal.

Anyone with a stake in Heinlein Pharmaceuticals was about to become rich beyond their wildest dreams; they had created what was being tooted as the perfect mood drug, a pharmaceutical wonder that would mellow anyone out.

It was going to be the perfect anti-anxiety drug for the working population, from stressed out blue-collar workers, to jittery high powered executives, and everyone in between, all looking for something to calm them down at the end of a week of work.

Not only that, it also promised to bring in huge government contracts. Dosages added to prison food, and any criminal would be too relaxed to even think about committing more crimes. Spread the dosages out to food banks and lower class crime rates would instantly plummet.

But suddenly, amidst all the excitement of this new wonder-drug, the news of some final test results had surfaced, suggesting the drug had some terrible side effects that would cause a slow death in some and rabid mania in the others. There were even rumors of test cases having to be euthanized.

Soon the talk died out, and Heinlein Pharmaceuticals shut down, rumored to have been bought out by the Blue Sun Corporation, although the property itself had been demolished, swept clean, and turned into a housing complex.

The main workers were rumored to have gone to the Core to seek work designing new ways to pack nutrients into freeze dried protein.

But now it seemed they had merely turned over their research to the Alliance, who, perhaps after tweaking the formula a bit, convincing themselves they had got the kinks out, decided to run some tests of their own, with a much larger test base.

Thirty million people, the woman on the screen had said.

Caroline fought back a feeling of rising nausea as the thought of what this all meant hit her. This meant war, and quite possibly the end of the Alliance. It was funny, in a horrible, ironic, gallows humor kind of way that the entire Rim, Border and Browncoat army couldn't bring down the Alliance – but a single Alliance scientist (and whoever had hit the Send button on that message) could.

* * *

**Translations**

**Mandarin:**

_Xuan Wu_ - black tortoise

Yujinhua – tulip

_Tyen shiao duh_ – name of all that's holy


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

*********************************************************************

**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Seven**

There was fallout.

*

*

*

At first there was just endless chatter, speculation, and gossip. In towns, on farms, in cities, and across the Cortex. Everyone suddenly seemed to have a cousin who had a friend who knew someone who had been part of an Alliance sponsored colonization and never heard from again. There was fear in people's eyes as they asked each other for more details.

News reports surfaced of several high ranking members of Parliament found dead, some from suicide, some from what appeared to be suicide.

Then it got worse when the major news organizations started digging and starting unearthing solid facts, backing up what the woman in the broadcast had said, and adding more details: a world called Miranda out in the Rim, settled back in 2506, a world now covered in dead people.

Even the Alliance mouth pieces, the broadsheets that put the best possible spin on everything, were starting to have doubts about their oh so wonderful government.

But the worst was when the Reilly Memo was leaked to the Cortex. The memo was named for the man in the recording. The internal memo had been discovered and released by the Londinium Times, one of the oldest and most respected news organizations in the 'verse.

The memo was regarding an upcoming meeting about some way to spin the Miranda Wave either into something positive, or at least spin it out somehow until it was a fragile as cotton candy.

The Junior Executive Assistant to the Speaker of the House of Lords, Sir Albert Edmund St. Justin Reilly, suggested that since the colonists of Miranda had all signed legal waivers when they had agreed to live on the newly terraformed planet with the understanding that they accepted the Alliance as providing everything and they would not sue for anything that went wrong with said supplies – including the air they breathed – there was obviously (in the memo speaker's opinion) no cause for the scandal that was currently enveloping the 'verse.

The most dismaying part was when he went on to state that _of course_ the colonists could not be informed of the Pax, since that could have caused biased data if they had known the purpose behind the new terra-formation air processers.

The backlash was fierce.

The idea that a simple signature signed in good faith with no idea that they were signing up to be guinea pigs and given fates of either slow deaths with no ceremony or fates worse than death was causing even the most staunchest supporters of the Alliance to take to the streets in protest.

On Deadwood, Caroline turned off the Londinium Times newswave, and began riffling through her records, looking for some old contact information. She dialed a code, and, when her wave was answered, smiled a chill smile at the person on the screen.

There was a long moment of silence as the two stared at each other. _Wuo duh Tian Ah_, _he's gotten old_, she thought, hoping the surprise didn't show on her face.

"_Nei hao_," the person finally said coolly in greeting.

"Hello father," she said with patently fake warmth. "How are things on Greenleaf?"

"More or less the same as when you left," he grumbled. "More Alliance. Less trust."

Caroline gave him a look of sour sympathy, pleased that this was going as she had hoped.

"And how are things on that _ri shao gou shi bing_ moon you lit out for with that _hun-dan_?" he asked her sardonically.

She chuckled bitterly. "Listen carefully father, I'm only going to say this once, so enjoy it." She took a deep breath. "You were right. Marrying him solved nothing."

He looked at her a few moments in silence, the squinting of eyes conveying surprise. "I take it this wave is to tell me you're divorcing him and you're asking if you can come home?" he finally asked gruffly.

"He's dead," she said, trying not to sound _too_ psychotically cheerful at the news she was conveying. "Shot by one of his own whores. I'm in charge of his holdings now, and taking things in a new direction."

"What kind of direction?"

"Nothing I want to prattle on about over the waves, but something I think we should discuss. I think you should come visit. After all, I've decided to make you a grandfather."

* * *

River sat at the main console on _Serenity_'s bridge, charting out courses the ship could take, mapping out variables, deciding the best, safest, fastest ways to go between just about any two points in the 'verse.

The captain had made her pilot of beloved _Serenity_, and she wanted to have back up plans for times when she knew she wouldn't be able to fly, and so wanted files on hand so any idiot, like the captain, could hit a button and the ship could go on auto pilot with her pre-charted course to get them wherever they needed to go that particular artificially designated day.

They were flying again – wounded, but flying. The Operative had helped, covertly, of course, to supply money and gear, and the whole crew had worked feverishly to patch up _Serenity_ to get her back in the air.

The captain was taking things slowly, with the ship, not wanting to ask too much of her right then, the jobs, not wanting to do anything too risky, his crew, not wanting to ask to much of them after asking them to do the impossible, and Inara, not wanting to do anything that would scare her off, but unsure still what to say to bring her closer. River knew this whole walking on eggshells approach couldn't last much longer, but she knew things would come to a head soon. She had no desire to be the bearer of bad tidings and announce what was coming.

River had been working on her back up courses project for most of the night cycle and now had over three thousand courses charted and stored in _Serenity_'s memory.

She hummed the beginning of Mozart's fifth symphony as she charted a course from Verbena to Paquin with variables of meteor showers 2.4 days out of Verbena's orbit and a broken right main thruster on entry to Paquin's atmosphere.

She heard someone on the stairs; judging by the sound of the shoes, the length of stride of the steps, and the smell of newly washed linen, she didn't need the "fun extras," as the captain might have sarcastically called them, to tell her that Simon had joined her on the bridge.

However, her extra added layer of perception allowed her to sense, somewhere in-between a sound and a smell, Simon's curiosity as to River's current status, mixed with his continuing longing for River's return to how she used to be before the Academy, along with an undercurrent of fear of what the Alliance would do next, and now, an added feeling of happiness.

River took a deep breath and smelled engine grease, cherry blossom shampoo, and cotton, and knew with surety that Simon had just left Kaylee sleeping in the hammock in the engine room.

"River?" he asked hesitantly from the doorway.

River saved the course she had just finished mapping and closed down the program. She picked up the knitting she had left in the other seat when she had come here after dinner. She went back to where she had left off in the sock she was knitting.

She had learned back when she was five on Osiris when there was a brief fad for arts and crafts in their socio-economic-regional circle, and tried to use it as a way to make friends.

Sadly, her calculations in that case had proved faulty, as the fad was mostly contained to those already in adolescence, and none of them had any wish to be upstaged by a five year old.

Now she used it as another way to keep her mind busy. She counted every single stitch, and did some abstract calculations with those numbers while she talked, knowing that the only way to keep a tight grip on the slight sanity brought by shouting out the secret of Miranda that had been clawing at her was to make sure she didn't leave any strands of her mind free to wander off and get tangled like badly wound yarn.

She was also enjoying making baby clothes and leaving them on Zoe's pillow, as a visible reminder, before Zoe's belly swelled, as to why the first mate had to stay here, and not do something stupid to try and join Wash in the ground.

She had felt the vague yearning from Zoe, to break loose the mortal coil, but she also felt the new life stirring in Zoe, and looked forward to meeting the child, to seeing how the two DNA strands of Wash and Zoe acted when meshed together.

She also looked forward to seeing the captain twitch when he realized what was going on with his first mate. His freak out was going to make any mad ravings of hers look like a calm Sunday school recital in comparison.

She smiled at the thought of the joy Zoe's baby had the probability of bringing.

"I see the sun breaking out through dark clouds," she told Simon in a lyrical voice, then clamped her hands over her ears and said, "No!" very sternly, ordering herself to stay close to sanity a little longer.

She went back to the knitting project, clicking harder with the knitting needles, reminding herself the other needles, the bad needles, were far away, silently listing the elements of the periodic table in alphabetical order to stay focused.

She looked at Simon with sad eyes. "It won't last," she said miserably. "Out, out, brief candle," she said sadly. "She- _I_ can't stay here long. Seeing the Miranda Broadcast acted as intense session of cognitive therapy, letting loose demons, sorting out the difference between a headful of truth and lies. Physically therapy session afterwards of killing thirty Reavers helped solidify my belief in the here and now, and brief break from psychos has followed. Freud would be proud. But…" she gulped and then went on, "but damage is too severe for this to be a permanent cure. You _saw_ the damage done, back on Ariel. A cup of tea can't cure an arm that's been cut off no matter how comforting the tea."

Simon knelt in front of her. "Oh _mei-mei_," he said, letting their foreheads touch as he as he hugged her. She could sense his sorrow, his anger, his sympathy, his pity, his frustration, but most of all his love for his brilliant little sister, and his willingness to do anything to help her get her mind back.

"Work helps," she said in a muffled voice against Simon's shirt. She looked up, meeting his worried eyes. "Piloting _Serenity_, guiding her, helps guide me. Tell the captain that the next time he inquires for more progress reports on my sanity."

"I will," promised Simon.

****

**Translations**

**Mandarin:**

_Wuo duh Tian Ah_ – oh my God

_Nei hao – _hello

_ri shao gou shi bing_ – pile of sun-baked dog poo

_hun-dan_ – bastard

_mei-mei _– little sister


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

**A/N**: Sorry for the delay – I had some tax issues to sort out. Also, about the box of "Hashwell's Finest" – Joss Wheadon stated on paper that in the Firefly verse (and I quote) "pot is totally legal." And in most fanon the best stuff comes from Greenleaf.

*********************************************************************

**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Eight**

"_**Gao yang jong duh goo yang**__!! __**Wo bu shin wo dah yan jing!!**_ _**Wo kao, gou niang?!?!? Yang de hong mao guizi qí yan, fen tu ye qu ni nainaide**__**!!!**_"

The curses were loud enough to be heard all across the ship. "How did this _happen?!_" shouted the captain in an almost desperate wail once he had used up pretty much every swear he knew.

He stood in Inara's shuttle, shocked by the conversation he had inadvertently walked in on.

He had come in, without knocking, of course, just in time to see Inara taking Zoe's measurements round the waist for new clothes, Inara telling her it was about time she admitted to needing new clothes, what with Zoe already being into her second trimester, and promising Zoe that she would look beautiful when she really started to show, and Zoe wryly saying she simply looked forward to meeting the baby, a smile on her face for the first time in ages.

"The usual way sir," growled Zoe, in answer to the captain's inane question, smile gone.

The captain stared in shock at the Zoe's midsection.

"My eyes are up here, sir," reminded Zoe tartly, inwardly sighing as she realized this was going to go just as badly as she had feared. She wasn't one for making grand announcements, and she kept finding excuses to put off telling people, specifically Mal; she kept thinking of how he had tried to forbid her from marrying Wash. She felt her back stiffen as she glared at Mal, silently daring her captain to make the same mistake twice.

Inara, meanwhile, rolled her eyes as she wound up the tape measure. "Did you really not know, Mal?" she asked, exasperated. "_Rung txe fwo txoo bao yo wuo muhm_," she muttered, rolling her eyes upwards as she prayed to the Buddha. "I thought everyone knew by now."

"Everyone knows?" asked the captain, still sounding shocked.

"_Jayne_ knows," said Inara witheringly.

"Jayne knows what?" asked the man himself, slouching against the shuttle doorway, curious to see why the captain was swearing so loudly. Kaylee and Simon were close behind him, looking considerably more anxious.

Mal rounded on him, "You _knew_ Zoe was pregnant?" he demanded angrily of his merc.

"Sure," Jayne said with a casual shrug. "My mama had the same green tinge in the morning with all my little sisters, same as Zo here."

"Isn't it exciting?" piped up Kaylee cheerfully. She squeezed past Jayne, dragging Simon with her by the hand into the open area of the shuttle. She gave Zoe a hug. "It's so sweet! And now we can all talk about it!"

"And how did _you_ know?" demanded the captain. "I _know_ you're the youngest and you ain't never seen your mama… uh, in that way."

Kaylee gave him a look of playful scorn. "Aw capt'n, ain't you noticed how Zoe keeps putting her hand on her stomach, all protective like?" The mechanic grinned bright as a star in excitement at the prospect of Zoe having a baby. "And anybody can see she's got that glow." She waved a hand vaguely towards Zoe's more than usual stoic face.

"Looks more like sweat to me," said Jayne, throwing in his two cents, which everyone ignored.

Next the captain turned on Simon, who was taking the opportunity to check Zoe's heart rate, or at least trying to, as she absently batted his hand away like a fly, not interested in being inspected at the moment.

"I take it you knew first thing, being ship's doctor and all," he drawled coldly, seriously considering revisiting his policy of letting doctors and mechanics sleep together without harassment from the captain.

"I don't break doctor-patient confidentially," said Simon stiffly.

"And what about your psychic little sister?" snapped Mal.

"I'm sure she would think it rude to go around broadcasting everyone's thoughts," drawled Simon. "But she wasn't exactly hiding her knitting projects."

"Her knitting -?" asked Mal, confused. He thought she'd just been making endless scarves. Wait – had those all been _baby_ clothes?!?

A smile tugged at the corner of Simon's mouth. "And I did think the change in Zoe's diet would have tipped everyone off."

Mal cast his mind back the past few weeks, trying to remember what he had seen Zoe eat and not eat. Come to think of it, he hadn't seen her drinking coffee in a while, but she never had seemed to need the caffeine boast in the mornings as much as he always had.

And it was true he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her drinking anything alcoholic, but they weren't very well supplied with alcohol on board at the best of times - and besides, she never was the type to drown her sorrows in a bottle of a rotgut.

But also, now that he thought about it, she _had_ mildly passed on the dish of tuna flavored protein the other night, and had been stocking up heavily on veggies and stuff when it was her turn for stocking the galley, and- Gorram it, he growled to himself, he'd been trying to give her, you know, grieving space, this wasn't his fault!

Meanwhile, Kaylee and Inara were discussing maternity clothes suggestions with Zoe, and Simon was trying to make inquires about Zoe's health. Jayne slouched off in the direction of the dining room where he'd left the guns he'd been cleaning.

Mal tried to re-enter the conversation with as much dignity as possible: "Well, now that it's all out in the open, how 'bout we start talking about plans?"

"Plans?" asked Zoe, icicles almost visible as the word left her angrily thinned lips.

"The ship ain't exactly baby proofed-" began Mal, but Zoe interrupted him angrily.

"Wash kindly left me something to remember him by besides his dinosaur collection," she snapped, "and if you have a problem with that, captain, I'll be off the ship as soon as we land."

Mal immediately started waving his hands in denial, "Whoa, that ain't what I'm saying at all!"

He tried not to wince at the multiple pairs of eyes in the shuttle giving him the 'why-are-you-kicking-stray-puppies-you-mean-old-man?' look.

"I just want to help, you know, get ready for this whole birth thing," he said, trying not to wince at the sound of his voice as the completely inadequate words came out. "You, ah, you should probably sit down," he added lamely.

Zoe pulled her gun on him.

Mal could count on one hand the number of times she had done that, and four times out of five it had meant he had messed up really bad.

"If you start treating me like a gorram china doll, I may have to shoot you. Sir," she told him, in the commanding voice of steel he was well acquainted with.

"Point taken," said Mal dryly, some of his equilibrium returning as he realized Zoe seemed to still be the same.

His experience with pregnancy was practically non-existent, and the stories he had heard over the years had left him convinced pregnant women were different creatures all together, and as such should be treated with the same care as a live bomb.

River's voice suddenly crackled over the speaker, sounding calm, but also sounding tired as she reported: "Wave coming in. Long range signal. System: Qing Long. Planetary sector: Laramie. Moon: Deadwood. Location: Burgess Homestead. Someone please come answer. Judging by the sound of the Greek chorus chanting fractal nodes in my ears, synapses are currently not firing correctly. Someone please relieve me of duty."

She suddenly began laughing, her voice reverberating crazily all over the ship as she chanted over the speakers: "Once more into the breach, dear friends. God for Harry, England, and St. George! Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war!"

* * *

_Two days earlier:_

The father and daughter sat in the parlor, having tea and deciding the fate of the 'verse.

But first, there was a lot to catch up on, and Mr. Ashbury was particularly interested in hearing about his daughter's pseudo motherhood once the pleasantries part of the conversation was dispersed with.

"So, after all that, you decide to take on _another_ whore's bastard?" asked her father over the rim of his teacup as she caught him up on the full story of recent events, how she had come to be a widow, and godmother to her husband's bastard.

Her father had arrived that morning, grayer than she remembered, and limping slightly, curtly mentioning that he'd taken so many different arthritis meds he seemed to be immune to them at this point.

She had showed him around. He, for once tactful, didn't say anything derisive, but she couldn't help compare to the pathetic little moon she was giving him a tour of to her memories of the gracefulness of Greenleaf before the war.

She also, as she gave him a tour of the house, introduced him to Chari, now a full eight months pregnant, and doing the lightest of housework, mostly spending her time watching vids or lounging, catlike, in the sunniest parts of the garden with a romance book.

"I want a child of my own,_ bàba_," Caroline told him frankly, as they sat in the parlor with tea, "and adoption is the only way its going to happen." She let her voice express some of her frustration as she went on, "Rance and I tried, and tried and _tried_, but to no effect."

"Sorry to hear that," he muttered ungraciously, taking a hasty gulp of tea.

She gave her father a sharp look. "Did you give mama anything experimental before I was born perhaps? How exactly did she die again?" She glared at him, daring him to acknowledge the rumors she had heard growing up and confirm her own suspicions.

He looked into his teacup as if it might hold the answer to all of life's mysteries. "She had a very difficult pregnancy," he said awkwardly. "I only gave what was needed to make sure you both lived. I thought you were both fine… afterward. We… wanted a second child." He looked up and out the window at the darkening sky. "But it was not to be," he said huskily.

Caroline could tell he had opened up as much as he was going to, and so moved on with her own story. "So I've been keeping an eye on Rance's brat, and doing what I can to improve the whorehouse. The ban worked wonderfully well – it gave them a chance to clean house, re-adjust rates, and set new rules for when the men came back – and a few months going without made the men happy to pay whatever was asked."

"And also made sure they were forced to look elsewhere during the ban, so you good get your own little whore pregnant," said Ashbury approvingly. "Good choice of a DNA donor, m'girl, she's fine boned, good complexion."

Caroline smiled with pleasure. It was so nice to talk to someone again who could keep up. "I didn't make anyone do anything," she said with a mock pious air before grinning wickedly: "but I am very happy with how things worked out." She sighed, "On this moon, anyway."

"The Miranda Wave," he said with understanding.

She nodded. "The Wave means war, you know," said Caroline, putting her tea cup down.

"And God save Greenleaf if whoever rises up against the Alliance this time discovers where the Pax actually came from," grumbled William Ashbury as he drained his teacup.

"Exactly," agreed Caroline. "The 'verse is on the edge of setting itself on _fire_. I was continually on edge for weeks after the Wave, waiting for the carnage to begin - and then I realized I'd seen this problem before, in the jungles of Greenleaf with all that build of forest floor tinder."

He blinked for a moment, and then smiled coldly, "A controlled burn. Get rid of the brush before a wild fire sets in."

She nodded as she took his empty cup and refilled both of their cups, adding lemon to both and slicing another piece of sponge cake for her father.

She took a sip from her cup. "You told me when I left that my problem was I needed to think bigger. And now I think you're right. We start this now, we could keep the deaths down to the millions, rather than the billions," said Caroline with cold certainty.

He took a meditative sip from his own teacup, and then put it down firmly. "Do you have something stronger?" he asked.

She quickly fetched a bottle Gao Liang Chiew, a type of scotch she knew her father had always liked, from the liquor cabinet and poured two glasses.

"Well," he said, after downing half the glass in one gulp, "you can't think much bigger than taking on the Alliance. But how do you propose on winning this time? The Browncoats fought down to their bare hands with the kind of belief you could never get from a simply paid solder, and still they lost. Why would it be different this time?"

Caroline smiled, not at all fazed. She felt like she was twelve years old again and he was questioning her on what her tutors had taught her that day.

She opened the box of a dozen Hashwell's Finest her father had brought her as a present. She took one of the delicate paper sticks out and lit the end. She slowly took a long, meditative drag. The light buzz was almost instant, the smoke going down smooth and crisp, unlike the horrid cheap stuff that was sold in the local area.

"I've been studying this problem since the Wave first went out," she told him, feeling very much the student reciting a report as she blew out a smoke ring, "I've been re-reading the war histories, both of the Unification War and other, older ones."

"Like the _Zi You __Zhànzhêng_," he said, referring to the war more than three generations ago that had almost destroyed the then young Core.

"That, and refreshing my memory of the wars on Earth-that-Was that resembled the Unification War. I've been reading up on the ancient Greek's Peloponnesian War, the first American Civil War, the Opium War, the Napoleonic wars, the third Afghanistan War, things like that."

"And what did you conclude?" he asked, sounding as though he too was thinking of her school days.

"I think the real reason the Browncoats lost was they didn't have complete unity – as much as the Independents liked to think they represented the whole of the Rim and Border, they didn't, which lead to split attentions."

"Greenleaf alone is proof of that," agreed Mr. Ashbury. He narrowed his eyes angrily and muttered, "The Alliance made us so many pretty promises, we should have known from the beginning it was too good to be true. There's been some muttering in the old circles about how to get the Alliance off world, but its just old folks grumbling at this point." He smiled self-deprecatingly.

"Would a little help nudge them into actually doing something?"

"Help from whom?"

"Everyone," she said simply. "Invite everyone, and I do mean _everyone_, the marginalized of society, especially the thieves, the criminals, anyone and everyone, those who have lost the most, those who nothing to lose and those everything to loose, and convince them of the benefit of making a new alliance long enough to kick the Alliance out of the Rim and Border. Think of all those veterans still clinging to their beliefs - think of all those little brothers and sisters who watched their older siblings go off to war and die, or worse, come back broken, grown up and burning for revenge now. Think of all the Rim and Border worlds being bled by Allaince taxes and starving while the Core eats their cake - and stuffs us with poison. Offer everyone the simple idea of every world being independent."

He chuckled dryly. "A few months ago I would have said you were crazy – but starting a new war against the Alliance sounds downright reasonable now rather than risk being their guineas pigs in whatever new science project they dream up next and decide to test out on the Rim."

"And I think we could get a lot of people to agree with us. Start small – just one little moon declaring independence, and drum up support from there. Bring in a little support first, of course. Everyone knows I'm pampering that girl like a _gwei ren_, so no eyebrows raised at supply shuttles coming with the latest whatever I've ordered for the house, especially with the birth coming up fast. Bella, the moon next door, is pretty much abandoned – the perfect place for a weapon's cache. We can make a hell of a first stand here."

"The arguments against being a part of the Alliance are definitely coming thick and fast these days."

"With reason. Even before the Wave the problems were obvious - the Core ignores the rest of the 'verse, yet has no problem exploiting us for the things that let them live so well – moons stripped bare to build their shining cites, planets turned into landfills to house their garbage, and the breadbasket of the verse on world like Hera and Aphrodite feeding the Core while the locals starve. And places like Shadow…." Caroline trailed off, recalling the news footage from the war. Almost involuntarily, both made the sign of the cross.

"Destroyer of worlds," said William, in a tone somewhere between a curse and a prayer.

"Well at least General Bernadette is dead. And I pray to God the Alliance doesn't have anyone like her to throw at us again."

"I think I can get the old circle on Greenleaf to lend support," he said, thoughtfully rubbing his chin, "they just need a bit of proof that the Alliance isn't invulnerable." He grinned. "And you know what they say – turnabout is fair play."

"You know," she said wistfully, toying with her glass idly, "I truly was looking forward to running this moon, trying to improve it, raising a daughter, pulling the strings to someday set up a marriage between Rance's bastard and my own to perhaps live long enough to see all the property combined in a grandchild, but now…." She sighed heavily. "It seems the stakes have been raised much higher."

"Thirty million lives high," reminded her father sternly. "But are you sure you want to start this war on a place called _Deadwood_?"

She shrugged. "We'll rename the place. I've been planning on trying to get a new name for this little moon, I just couldn't think of anything that would stick harder enough to cover up the old name."

"Do you have anything in mind now?"

She smiled sardonically. "Liberty," she declared, with a smile like a cat with cream.

"Well then," he said with a smile to match hers as he raised his glass, "to Liberty."

They clinked glasses, as if sealing the bargain to something.

They talked for hours, hashing out logistics, speculating on who they could use for plans, for speeches, for supplies, for overt help, for covert help, for propaganda, for press, and for support.

* * *

**Translations**

**Mandarin:**

_Mal's swears_ – mostly gibberish, I strung a lot of swears together in a jumble

_Rung txe fwo txoo bao yo wuo muhm_ - Merciful Buddha protect us

_Zi You_ _Zhànzhêng_ – Freedom War

_bàba_ – papa

_Gao Liang Chiew_ – Phoenix Whiskey

_gwei ren – _royal concubine


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

*********************************************************************

**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Nine**

_Serenity_ flew through the black, coming up fast on Deadwood.

They were on autopilot, using a course that River had, probably not coincidentally, pre-programmed weeks ago to land them right next them to the Burgess ranch. She had left the course on the console, ready to be used, when Mal and most of the rest of the crew had rushed up to the cockpit to relieve her of duty and take the com as she babbled on about kings and horses and arrows blotting out the sun and French flowers.

Mal sat at the dining table, his hot cup of Kaffex, the cheap, pseudo-coffee good for years in dry storage, slowly growing cold next him. He put his head in his hands, and questioned his sanity.

His first mate was pregnant and he couldn't seem to say anything to her without putting his foot in his mouth, his pilot hadn't been lucid since she'd announced the incoming message from Deadwood, and he'd taken a delivery job without knowing a lick of what to expect, except for the fact that the Widow Burgess had called it a "simple drop off."

It was never simple.

He knew that from hard earned experience. He also knew that River may or may not have been trying to say that it was going to, somehow, be a rather more complicated job than simply dropping something off.

When he had tried to delay saying yes as he spoke to the woman on the screen, at least until he could get the frustratingly close mouthed Caroline Burgess to elaborate a little more on the nature of the job, River had all but begged him to take the job, the only semi-coherent thing she'd been able to say was that better to join the dance as the music started, rather than waiting for a herd of elephants to flatten you.

Now Zoe sat down at the table across from him, a cup of juice in her hand. "Good morning, sir," she said.

He looked up hopefully. She sounded quite cordial.

It still surprised him to see her come out of her room in the morning, dressed in loose fitting tunics and long flowing skirts instead of her usual trim outfits. He suspected Simon was going to insist she move into one of the passenger dorms in a few months time to keep her from going up and down the crew dorm ladder.

He was not looking forward to being part of that argument.

"How are you this morning?" he asked carefully as he took a sip of his caffeinated morning beverage, trying not to torture himself with the memories of the pots of real coffee his mama used to make fresh for all the hands every morning back on the ranch on Shadow.

"_We're_ just fine, sir," she said with the hint of a smile. Zoe had lately taken to referring to herself in the plural, just to tease him.

He smiled good humouredly; he was willing to put up with a lot of such teasing, knowing she was breaking free from the ice that had threatened to consume her after Wash died. Her eyes had a hint of red in them this morning, which wasn't that usual these days. He wasn't worried about that – yet. It looked like the baby was making her let out some of the emotion she usually kept bottled up, and he knew from past experience that it had to come out sooner or later.

"And how-" he was about to make another joke about the 'stowaway,' as he nicknamed Zoe's baby, when screams started coming from the direction of the hold.

Angry screams.

Mal and Zoe took off running, Mal just managing to keep a pace ahead of her as they raced down the stairs.

There was a jam of people at the doorway. Kaylee and Inara looked unsure whether or not to intervene, Inara's hand on Kaylee's shoulder in an attempt at reassurance, while Jayne stood, arms crossed, watching, looking unsurprised, a bit amused, and with obviously no intention to walk into the midst of the argument.

River and Simon stood in the middle of the infirmary, the examination table in between them, both looking very red in the face. River was brandishing what looked like a data pad in her brother's face, whose eyes kept flicking in the direction of a pile of needles on the floor, flung there by River after he had initial tried to stem her arguments with a smoother.

She was shouting a long stream of highly colorful curses at him, some that made even Mal, old hand as he was at cursing, take a few mental notes for later use, when she suddenly stopped mid-sentence to scream in pure frustration and then yelled, "And I cannot even insult you properly, for to insult your ancestry is to insult mine as well!"

"Should we do something?" asked Kaylee uncertainly. "Stop 'em somehow?"

Jayne gave her a look like she was the one who was insane. "You kidding? _Both_ of 'em know how to knock me out. I ain't going into that tiger pit."

"What in the seven hells-?" Mal asked Kaylee as River resumed a new course of insults.

"They- they started arguing on how try to get her back on course," stammered Kaylee nervously. "Simon looks like he's about to pop."

" 'Brilliant' they called you!" River was scoffing at Simon, " 'Genius!' 'Gifted!' The brightest and best of your class, your school, your hospital, your _generation_! Nothing you couldn't do! And you know, you _know_, in comparison I make you look like the dullest, dumbest, slowest apprentice!"

"River, please calm down," instructed Simon with a less than successful attempt at calm himself.

River whirled on Kaylee and told in her a cool drawl that made her sound like the most fussiest and snobbish of an upper crust Core society matron, "I hope the children get your brains and not his."

Mal glared down at his mechanic, who threw up her hands in hasty denial, "Wow, hey, _I_ ain't the one whose pregnant."

River turned her glare back to her brother. "The girl and the boy have certainly been _practicing_ the act often enough," she sneered, and then resumed screaming, "And I hope she doesn't love you for your mind, because it's clear you don't have one, _yi dwei da buen chuo roh_!"

She broke, briefly, from her tirade to take several deep shuddering breaths.

"Okay, now, what's all the fuss about here, doc?" asked Mal in his I'm-faking-being-calm-and-about-to-lose-it voice.

Simon opened his mouth to answer, but River spoke up first. "He could have just asked her," she said flatly, giving Mal a glare.

For a moment Mal thought she was referring to him, but River turned her face to Simon and brandished the data pad again. "The boy had a homework problem he couldn't solve and in his pride he wouldn't just ask his sister how to solve it!" She jabbed a finger at the screen, "Your calculations are erroneous _and I could have fixed them_!"

"I've been doing everything I could-"

"You can't see the forest for the trees!" she shouted. "Stupid Hansel, trailing breadcrumbs while Gretel screamed the witch was going to eat us! _And you didn't listen!_"

And then, to shock of everyone, Simon slammed his hands down on the examination table and shouted back. "I was the _only_ one that listened! I got your message and then _I got you out of there_!"

There were tears in his eyes even as he ranted on: "It was an absolutely impossible task - _and I did it_. The whole thing was insane - me, Simon Tam, one of the most eligible sons and most brilliant doctors on Osiris, a fugitive on the run, looking after River Tam, who was supposed to someday be one of the leading intellectuals in the verse, and re-teaching her the very basics of behavior! One of the most brightly ascending surgeons of the medical community sewing up bullet holes on pirates while the most brilliant student of the entire Core plays jacks!"

"Interesting how the bright young Tam siblings have such trouble with first person pronouns," drawled Mal in a bored tone to no one in particular, and then, louder: "Ok, I'm glad you two got that out of your systems, and I mean that sincerely – ain't natural for siblings not to ever fight. But we got a ship to run and a job coming up."

Everyone looked at the captain in something of a daze, surprised to see him dismiss so lightly the epic wrongness of seeing River and Simon fight.

"River, since you seem to have remembered how smart you are, we're going to go discuss the job and let your brother clean up in here," said Mal firmly.

"Help the spider spin the web so we don't get caught in it," said River with a glazed look in her eye. She gave a small shake of the head and then brandished the data pad again, "I have notes," she said in a suddenly much more normal sounding voice. "I have ideas!"

"Good, give them to your bother, say your sorry for letting loose all your anger on him, when you _know_ that _he_ ain't the one you're mad at, and then come with me," he said firmly. "Ain't neither one of you responsible for the mess the Alliance made, so quit blaming each other."

River opened her mouth, looking as though she had more arguments on her tongue, but stopped, closed her mouth, gave Mal a brisk nod of acquiesce and calmly walked around the table to hand the data pad to Simon. "I'm sorry _gi-gi_," she said contritely.

"Oh _mei-mei_," said Simon, "I'm sorry too," and enveloped her in a hug.

"Very touching," drawled Mal, pretending to feel nothing at the sight of familial harmony. "Meet me on the bridge in five, lil' Albatross." And Mal walked off, herding everyone else away along with him. "Come on folks, this ain't no show."

Jayne clumped off, muttering something to himself about the damn kids being _equally_ insane.

On the ramp above the hold Inara walked beside Mal. "That was quite… perceptive of you," she complimented.

He gave her a wry smile, "I have my moments."

Inara chuckled, deep in the back of her throat, "Not many, but you do have them," she agreed. She intertwined her fingers with his. Mal looked down, surprised.

"Have dinner with me," he asked, suddenly, impulsively, imploringly.

"Where?" she asked, amused.

"Here, next planet we land on, the Core – anywhere you want," he promised rashly.

"How about tea?" she asked, sounding almost shy.

"Are you inviting me to you shuttle?" he asked, a bit of usual cockiness returning to his voice.

She smiled back. "Yes, I suppose I am."

"Well then," he told her, giving her a courtly bow, "I'll see you at teatime," and went off to the bridge.

In the infirmary River showed Simon several of the notes she had made that morning when she had been lucid long enough to understand her own insanity. Simon quickly picked up on what she was talking about as she pointed out her notations to his own work he had done with her brain scans, and the two soon where in a deep conversations about drug combinations and non-invasive measures with electro-mag scanners.

When Simon starting talking about plans for what to do next, she gave him a brief peck on the check. "You do your job and I'll do mine now," she told him happily.

"Flying the ship?" he asked, not looking up from River's detailed analysis of her own hippocampus.

"Navigating us out of danger," she said with a small, sad smile, then left for the bridge.

As she left she passed Kaylee, who had been hovering about uncertainly. "River..?" began Kaylee hesitantly.

River didn't have to prey – the thoughts Kaylee had were being projected loud and clear.

People assumed mind-reading was like breaking into someone's private safe; the truth was it was often a lot like reading someone's expression – a person could be blank faced, keeping their cards close to the vest, or they could let their thoughts project wide. Kaylee very rarely had a closed up mind, her thoughts tended to be right on the surface and more often than not were hard _not_ to hear.

Kaylee was worried about her relationship with Simon after the very loud reminder that she was dealing with scion of wealth, privilege, and intellect. What did a lowly Rim-world mechanic, she wondered mournfully, have to do with that?

River smiled and whispered in Kaylee's ear, "Simon thinks you shine brighter than the stars. Don't be scared. The captain's right – all siblings fight. The Tams just have to be more dramatic about it."

Kaylee gave a nervous giggle, her eyes straying to Simon, hunched over River's notes.

"Tell him not to work too hard," advised River as she headed off to speak with the captain.

Kaylee went into the infirmary, where it was clear River needn't have bothered whispering, since Simon was already absorbed in the work.

"Making progress?" Kaylee asked, uncertain which tack to take.

Simon looked up and she blinked at the look of pain on his face. "She was right," he said huskily.

"_Sha muh_?"

"I should have realized she was the answer, not just the problem."

"Simon, some days I don't think she even realized where she was!" reminded Kaylee sharply. "She's like the _mei-mei_ I always wanted, and I love her to bits, but that doesn't mean you should think you didn't do your best for her!"

"Did I?" he asked sadly.

Kaylee cupped his face in her hands. "Oh Simon, the stars in the sky couldn't be more loyal then you."

Simon smiled tentatively at her. "And they couldn't shine brighter than you." And he kissed her.

Kaylee kissed back, but broke away – reluctantly – and laughing joyfully, told him, "Well, doctor, _Serenity_ needs repairs, and it looks like you got work to do here, but I'll see you at dinner, _duì_?"

"_Dang ran_," agreed Simon.

River smiled as she felt the threads of Kaylee and Simon twisting further together like one of her own knitting projects.

"Feeling a mite calmer, little one?" greeted Mal when River came on the bridge.

"Yes _bàba_," she said mischievously, hands behind her back, projecting the picture of innocence.

He gave her a grin. "Nice try, darling, but I've resisted bigger puppy eyes than yours."

River took her seat at the console next to him and said seriously, "The job is going to be dangerous."

* * *

Caroline went over the fifth draft of the message she intended to send out. The very exact words were needed to strike the right responses from the audience. The plans were already in motion, there had been a few ships come to Deadwood, which she had all sent off on numerous task, each one innocuous in itself, but together they would provide her deadly tinder.

Her father had gone back to Greenleaf. She had provided him with considerable sums to let him buy a few supplies on the way back. They were going to have to start small, letting as few people as possible what the plan was in these beginning stages, but once all the kindling was in place, and she lit the match, the whole verse was going to know it.

She trusted her father, and was somewhat surprised who easily they had moved back into a relationship of stepping in tune, and she silently cursed Rance and her own pride for causing some many years away from one of the few people she admired.

Her father was clearly looking for atonement. An odd word for a man who had always dismissed the family's Catholic faith as a mere 'social trapping,' but the word described what he sought now quite well.

Caroline could see he saw his dear world as partially responsible for the fate of Miranda, and a point of honor that Greenleaf do all that was possible to prevent another such event ever happening again.

He was sure of his part, but he obviously worried about her own faith in this project, and never mind she was the instigator. "Are you sure?" he had asked her again as he prepared to leave, the ship, the _Jinsè Táozi_, back to bring him home to Greenleaf. "Once we start, there's no going back, and no matter what, people are going to get hurt."

She had leveled her coldest gaze at him, "My heart isn't some soft thing to weep over every sparrow that falls."

"Speaking of popinjays," he had muttered warningly, looking at something behind her shoulder.

The magistrate and his wife had come to the ship to wish Mr. Ashbury a good journey, inviting him to dinner the next time he was in the area, the magistrate managing to mention all the new wonderful memorandums he had already had a clerk compose and distribute to promote civil obedience in the space of a five minute conversation where he had done most of the talking.

His wife's dogs swarmed around their feet, yipping and yapping in excitement, Caroline barely hiding her distaste at the annoying little canines from the couple, and not at all from her father.

"I hope you're not starting an intergalactic war over some yapping dogs," he told her grimly after the couple had left and the engines gunned as he prepared to go inside so the ramp could be lifted.

She gave him a grin like a gambler risking everything on one last throw of the dice. "Never," she promised gamely. "That's just going to be a fun bonus."

Now, as she sat at her desk she tapped her pen impatiently as she tried to put together the right words. She crossed out another sentence, dismissing it as a little too inflammatory, when one of the house servants came running into the room.

"Ma'm," gasped the girl, Anna-Beth, out of breath, "Chari's just gone into labor."

Caroline's eyes flicked to the desk calendar. She stood up without any rush. "A bit early. Ah well. Has the doctor been sent for?"

"Yes Madame," said the girl, catching her breath and calming down under the influence of Caroline's cool presence.

"Good. Where is Chari?"

"I think Teyu's taking her to bed. Madame?" asked Anna-Beth nervously, twisting a corner of her apron nervously in her hands, "I think Chari's scared."

Caroline gave her a brief smile, "No fears, the doctor knows what he's doing."

* * *

A little while Caroline and Doc Peters stood in Chari's room, both considerably calmer than the girl on the bed as she experienced her first strong contractions, the initial light ones having quickly morphed into larger, painful ones that seemed to grip her whole body.

"So, who is the father?" asked the doctor curiously as he laid out the tools of his trade, the metal gleaming in the light of the lamps. He quickly administrated a general smoother that briefly sent Chari's eyes rolling back into her head when the drugs hit her system.

"There is no father," Caroline declared grandly.

"The girl's the _go tsao de_ Virgin Mary now?" chuckled the doctor.

Caroline laughed dryly. "More Magdalene than Mary – but with none of the repentance. I've given her plenty of time to think on her sins," she said mock piously, "but, as I suspected, she is determined to simply milk the benevolence I am bestowing on her. But whoever fathered the child doesn't matter."

"Might be a paternity suit," the doctor pointed out

She smiled poisonously, "I pity whoever tries to come between me and what's mine."

Another contraction hit Chari, stronger than the drugs, causing her to moan loudly.

Caroline moved to the bed and patted the girl's forehead with a damp cloth and asked soothingly, "Poor dear, is this your first?"

"Yes'm," Chari gasped out through the drugs and pain, sweat already reforming on her brow.

Caroline's face hardened as she turned to the doctor. "First labors take longer, yes?"

He shrugged his corpulent shoulders. "Generally. I'd say she'll be at it another twelve to fourteen hours. Maybe longer."

Chari moaned loudly, either from the pain of contractions or from the news that this was not going to end soon.

Caroline ignored her. "Dope her," she ordered curtly. "I don't want to hear her screaming all night. Wake me _only_ if the baby arrives before sunrise."

"And if there are… complications?" asked the doctor delicately.

"I don't need to stay up in case anything like that arises - as legal guardian you have my permission to do _whatever_ is necessary to ensure that the _baby_ is born healthy," she said curtly, and left.

Chari was in too much pain to register the chilling implications of Caroline's words.

The doctor acted quickly to follow her orders. Chari spent the night in a drug induced haze, the pain fading in and out, occasionally spiking and cutting through the drugs, but she was unable to make a sound due to the throat paralyzer the doctor had injected her with – it kept her from screaming without interfering with her lower body muscles as the labor progressed.

Caroline slept the sound, sweet sleep of surety.

She sent one of the servants for a progress report when she woke and heard back that Chari was still at it, but the doctor estimated the baby would be born in the next hour or so. Caroline sent word back to alert her when the birth was imminent and set about her morning routine, taking care to dress in an outfit she wouldn't care about getting ruined.

When word came that the baby was minutes away from arrival, she put down her coffee and hurried, but didn't run, to the back room. She walked in just as the doctor was easing the baby's shoulders out.

Chari was unconscious by this point from a combination of the drugs and pain, and didn't respond as the baby broke free and gave her first cry as the doctor deftly, with the ease of much practice, clamped the umbilical cord and gave the baby a whack to start her breathing on her own.

Caroline had a baby blanket already in hand as she stretched out her arms. "Give her to me," she said excitedly. The doc handed the crying baby over and then leaned back down to deal with afterbirth.

Caroline wrapped the blanket around the baby and rocked her in her arms, surprised by the gentle little shushing and cooing noises that came from her own lips as she looked down on the baby with a satisfied thought of _Mine_.

"What's the name going to be?" asked the doctor curiously as he wiped the blood off his hands with a damp cloth.

"Belinda… Belinda Ashbury," she said softly, brushing the baby's head reverently.

On the bed Chari moaned feebly as she regained consciousness. Her skin was grey and sweaty. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked beyond exhausted.

Caroline didn't envy her one bit. As she held the baby she allowed herself to enjoy the moment, knowing she was profiting from another's misery, and didn't care a jot. She had what she wanted. No one else in this verse was going to help her, so she had to help herself. And what's more, she was willing to fight to reshape the 'verse just to make a safe playground for her daughter.

Chari's eyes fluttered open.

"Still alive?" asked Caroline, a touch sardonically. She didn't wait for a reply as she went on, "Good. Breast milk will be so much more healthier for my baby than powdered."

* * *

She brought the baby with her to church on Sunday.

Petaline's eyes went wide as Caroline walked in holding the baby. "Whose baby is that?" she asked, shocked.

"This is my daughter," she said matter of factly. "Belinda Ashbury."

"My God, it's true what they're saying about Chari, isn't it? You-"

"Did nothing wrong," Caroline finished for her. "No threats. No guns. Not a drop of blood spilled outside of the birth itself. The child is mine legally. Everyone agrees."

"Chari agrees to that?" asked Petaline doubtfully.

Caroline smiled and lowered her voice to say in a conspiratorial tone. "You and I both know that Chari will agree to quite a lot if she is offered payment."

"You paid her for the baby?" asked Petaline in flat surprise.

"A very large amount," confirmed Caroline. "Chari didn't want the child and was happy enough to take a large bonus in exchange for the baby. She'll be taking her wages and heading off world as soon as my daughter's weaned," confided Caroline.

Keeping a look of fond devotion on her face as she made a show of cooing over Belinda, she saw out of the corner of her eye the look of scorn on Petaline's face at the description of Chari's decision. Caroline smirked inwardly to see Petaline accept the story as was, without any questions as to the details of Chari's agreement.

As she walked back to her home she saw Captain Reynolds's ship landing nearby. She smiled broadly. "For your first lesson in life, best beloved," she told her daughter, rocking her gently in her arms, "I will teach you what Sun Tzu's says of fighting an enemy bigger than you: simply… prevent him from fighting."

* * *

**Translations**

**Mandarin:**

_Yi dwei da buen chuo roh –_ Big stupid pile of stinking meat:

_mei-mei_ – little sister

_gi-gi_ – older brother

_Sha muh – _What?

_duì _– yes

_dang ran_ – of course

_bàba_ – papa

_Jinsè Táozi_ – golden peach

_go tsao de – _dog humping, f***ing


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

Ok, I wrote and re-wrote the meeting with Caroline Burgess _way_ too many times as I tried to decide who should be in the room. I think I finally got the right mix.

*********************************************************************

**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Ten**

Mal and Zoe agreed that they didn't need everyone to go to the meeting with Mrs. Burgess. Simon had already waved Petaline at the Heart of Gold before they landed to inquire after Jonah, promising to come visit his godson and give him a check up, obviously feeling guilty over practically forgetting the fact he _had_ a godson.

Kaylee had told him no one would hold that against him, considering everything that had happened recently, but he was determined to do what little he could to make up for what he uncomfortably suspected would be all too frequent absences.

Kaylee also said she wanted to see the baby as well, although it was obvious to everyone - expect Simon - that Kaylee wanted to keep an eye on him.

"And it's not that I don't trust Simon," Kaylee had told Inara, sitting with Inara in her shuttle, letting Inara comb her hair before they landed. Inara made a 'mhmm' noise in the back of her throat as she gently pulled at a tangle in Kaylee's curls, wondering how her adopted _mei-mei_ had managed to get what looked like bits of engine flux wire caught in her hair.

Kaylee went on, "But I saw how those girls were looking at him at the christening – 'cause once that whole, you know, imminent death problem we had last time was cleared up, they actually had time to _notice_ Simon, and I definitely saw some of them eyeing him – and there's a lot to be said for him on first glance, fancy Core doctor all polished and well spoken." Kaylee grinned up at Inara. "Sure got my attention!"

"Yes, we all noticed," said Inara dryly as she deftly pointed Kaylee's head back down and began twisting two polished mahogany hair sticks into Kaylee's hair.

The smile on Kaylee's face changed to a look of grim determination, "So there ain't no reason to let him be put upon, ummm, I mean, no reason for…" she faltered, trying to come up with a reasonable way to describe her somewhat illogical unease at the situation.

Inara finished twinning up the hair sticks and leaned down to take Kaylee's chin her hand. "You could just put a tracking collar on him," she joked, doing her best to cover her own turbulent emotions.

She did not want to go to Deadwood.

She did not want to go to the Heart of Gold.

She did not want to go to the place where Nandi was dead and buried.

She did not… have a choice.

Inara sighed slightly, mentally scolding herself for lacking the courage to visit her dear _jie-jie_.

Meanwhile, Kaylee's eyes briefly glazed over as her brain provided her with several sexy variations on the idea of Simon wearing a slave collar. She had to shake her head to snap herself back to reality, almost putting Inara's work into complete disarray. "Thanks 'Nara," she said cheerfully, and then went off to find Simon.

Meanwhile, Mal had taken Zoe aside and told her to go with the two kids to keep an eye on things, considering how his young doc and mechanic both had habits of inadvertently getting into trouble, good intentioned as they were.

Zoe's maternity clothes were less intimidating than her old outfits, and her swelling belly gave her more of a look of someone who needed to be protected rather than a fearsome gun hand in her own right, but, with her calm eye and gleaming Winchester, she was still formidable and perfectly suited to act as bodyguard. So Simon, Kaylee, and Zoe planned to get off at the Heart of Gold before River brought _Serenity_ closer to town.

Jayne was open in his disappointment that he couldn't go straight to the Heart of Gold, but his surly scowl would only help in his role as intimidation factor, always handy to have alongside when talking with anyone about an upcoming job negotiation. River, meanwhile, wouldn't impress anyone at a glance, but Mal was damned if he was walking into this particular meeting without his trusty psychic at his side.

Mal had assumed Inara would be going with the others to the Heart of Gold as well. He was more than a little surprised when she came up to him as they approached Deadwood and told him she would take the precaution of bringing a silver 69-Mauser-9MM she'd bought when they'd been on Beylix a few weeks back, but she didn't anticipate any trouble at an initial meeting, as if it was already agreed that she'd be coming with him.

Mal had blinked, thrown, first, by her assumption that she was part of the meet, and, second, by the fact Inara had felt the need to buy a gun, and then he managed to open his mouth, and they commenced arguing. Loudly.

"Mal," she had argued after he had gotten through his initial objections, "either I'm part of this crew or I'm not, and after everything's that's happened, I am _indelibly_ part of this crew, so don't try and tell me different!"

"Iffn' you're crew," he had tried to argue, "then that means you take orders from me, and my orders are-"

"For me to stay nice and safe on the ship?" she asked acidly.

"It could be dangerous going in and while I'm there I need …" he fumbled for the words to express his anxiety at exposing Inara to what might be coming, "I need-"

"What? You need someone you can trust?" she asked, misinterpreting where he was going with his argument, "Need to have someone who knows twelve different types of self defense? Someone who has taught you how to use weapons? Someone who knows how to stay rational in the face of emotion?" She listed each point of her qualifications like the crack of a whip

"Inara-" he had tried to interject, but she went on:

"Someone who can observe important minute details about surroundings and body language? Someone who can act as an important social passport to all sorts of situations? Someone who can be the distraction, the back up, the escape plan and the rescuer?" she snarled, her mask of gentility completely gone – removed, as it had been so many times, by the emotions this insufferable _man_ caused to well up out of her.

"I've been all that and more," she went on. "I went with you the first time we met this woman and her oh so unlamented husband, and I don't see what's changed to try and keep me away now."

"Gorram it, we didn't know how bad it was going to be last time," shouted Mal. "Nan-uh People _died_ last time!"

Inara went suddenly, gravely, silent and gave him a long, assessing look, the anger slipping off her face to be replaced by an expression of almost Zen like stillness.

Mal felt almost like fidgeting in the silence that went on and on, trying desperately to hold on to a stoic show down stare, trying to ignore the awful pounding in his ears of his own heartbeat.

In a way, he wasn't surprised they had gotten to this point; they had been so damn polite and awkward with each other earlier when they had sat down to tea in Inara's shuttle, they might have been two teenagers on an arranged outing supervised by a the most stuffy and hawk eyed of great-aunts.

Inara finally broke the silence. "Nandi?" she asked carefully, as if weighing the heavy weight of the emotive word on her tongue. "Was that the name you were going to say?" she asked quietly, almost sadly, almost conversationally.

Mal dropped his gaze and mumbled, "I don't want the same to happen to you." He looked up, meeting her eye with much less stoicism. "I couldn't save her-" he began, but Inara interrupted.

"My God Mal!" she exploded, Zen calmness gone. "You think I don't think the exact same thing? I was _right there_ when it happened. You think I haven't gone over the scene over and _over_ in my mind trying to think of what I could have done differently? I- I - I should have killed that _hudun_ when I had the chance!" Her composure was crumbling away, tears welling up.

Mal opened his mouth – then closed it. He mentally kicked himself for not thinking Inara would have taken the blame of Nandi's death as much as he had. "Not your fault," he mumbled, "But-"

"_Renzi de shang di!_" Inara swore heatedly, anger and sorrow warring with each other in her voice, "You think I _want_ to see you run off into danger again? Why do you think I left? I thought my heart couldn't take it if I saw you get hurt and I stupidly thought distance would somehow magically erase that worry! That hopping a few systems away would give me back all my years of training that let me get as close as you can to a person and feel nothing, something _you_ somehow managed to erase without even trying!" Her breath, and her anger, petered out. "Please, please don't push me away. Don't… don't let me push you away again," she whimpered.

Mal grabbed her in his arms and held her close, murmuring tender words in her ear, murmuring endearments, telling her he was a fool to let her go, that he'd never be such a fool again, that he _loved_ her.

Inara gasped quietly, and looked up at him with tears still in her eyes. "Oh Mal," and kissed him. "How could we be so stupid?" she asked when they broke apart. "I love you Malcolm Reynolds, in all your exasperating glory."

He grinned, even as he kissed her, and when they broke for air again he told her with a chuckle, "Well, I've been called _worse_ things."

However, before things could progress any further, River's voice crackled over the ship speakers in the clinical voice she had come to use when she was doing several math problems at once to keep herself in the moment: "Coming up on Deadwood's atmosphere. Initial landing for first disembankment in twenty three minutes and forty four seconds. Forty three seconds. Forty two. Despite Kaylee's heroic mending efforts, landing shockers are currently only at thirty two point two percent capacity. Everyone please prepare for a bumpy ride."

They landed first at the Heart of Gold to drop off Zoe, Simon and Kaylee, arriving as most of the house were coming back from church. The whole crew was greeted cheerfully, and Mal promised Petaline to come back and stay long enough for a proper visit soon.

Several of the girls made professional – and not so professional – little pouts of disappointment to see Jayne leave as soon as he had arrived. Mal left the mule behind with Zoe, figuring it was safer to leave them with a separate means of transport, given how things always did seem to go the most wrong when things seemed at their most innocuous.

"You're going to meet with the Widow Burgess?" Petaline asked as Mal cast one more glance over the place before leaving, feeling slightly uneasy at having the crew split up. He'd been nervous lately if he went too long without his crew in sight. So many lost recently, he didn't want to lose anymore.

"Hmm? What? Oh, yeah," he confirmed, startled from he's reverie. He swung his gaze from the horizon to look at her more closely. "How'd you guess?" he asked curiously.

She shrugged. "We've been getting more than the usual folks coming in, all here on business to see the widow." Jonah started to fuss and fidget, wriggling like he wanted to escape, and Petaline rocked him in her arms soothingly.

"Huh," said Mal thoughtfully. He tucked that bit of information away. "Well, we've got to head out. Keep an eye on them," he instructed, only partly joking.

"See you tonight!" called Petaline before turning back to Simon, letting him take Jonah from her arms. Simon began asking analytical questions about the baby's health while Kaylee cooed: "Who's got his mama's pretty eyes? Yes you do! Yes you do!" Jonah grinned and happily babbled cooing noises back at her, a few teeth already in his smile.

A few of the girls approached Zoe, asking for some pointers on shooting, clearly remembering how well she had handled herself during the infamous Battle of the Whores, as even the 'Gold girls referred to it now.

River landed _Serenity _just on the outskirts of town and insisted they take 'the scenic route,' as she called it. As they went through the town, headed towards Mrs. Burgess's homestead, Mal noted not only a nervous energy among the crowds, but also, surprisingly, an almost excited undercurrent to it.

Mal began to suspect River wanted him to see the amount of folk gathering in town, more than seemed usual, all talking to each other in a manner that suggested something big was imminent.

As they approached the Burgess homestead, Mal found he was catching snatches of familiar conversation.

He had become, he realized, used to walking by angry, fearful muttering folk whenever the ship touched down in ports ever since the Miranda Wave, people comparing notes about the Wave, Miranda, Reavers, news from the Core, and speculation on what might happen next.

People here on Deadwood were much the same, talking in brief clutches along the sidewalk, swapping talk back and forth in urgent undertones, but there seemed to be a much more focus to the talk here.

The conversations Mal caught were a mix of the wearingly familiar:

'-and I heard no one ever came to bury 'em or anything, just left to rot where they lay-'

'-acting like 30 million dead is no big deal-'

'-said it was suicide, but since when do those overfed Parliament members know how to even use a sword?'

But at the same time, Mal caught wind of something new as he walked down the street:

'-actual answers, they said!'

'-that's right, nine o'clock, everyone-'

'-not gonna act like sheep, waiting for the next slaughter-'

There seemed to more people around than just the town's population, people with the look of having just arrived. A fenced in grassy pasture area was crowded with horses cropping, all of the posts had horses tethered to them, and people were having trouble finding a spot for wagons and flitters - far too many for just the going-to-church crowd. There were even a few other parked shuttles dotting the nearby landscape.

"Lil' Albatross," said Mal out of the side of his mouth as he nodded pleasantly to a couple they were passing by, "How bad is this going to get?" He took her arm as if they were merely a father and daughter out for an aimless Sunday afternoon stroll.

Jayne paced a step behind them, scanning the crowds, clearly a merc on the job and on the look out for trouble and impossibly anything else. Inara walked along the other side of Mal, her mask of polite composure firmly in place.

River let Mal take her arm while taking in slow and measured breaths, clearly trying to steady herself. "So much talking," she said, rubbing her free hand against her temple, as if trying to physically banish the barrage of mental chatter. "Everyone's asking the same question – what will the widow say?"

"I'm wondering that myself," he grumbled.

River gave him a sharp look. "I told you everything _I_ know," she scolded. She put her nose in the air like a huffy teenager, "My apologies, _bàba_, for not being _omnipotent_."

"No offense meant, little one, just nervous about the job, is all," he said soothingly, giving her hand a little pat of reassurance.

"You should be," muttered River. "Mrs. Burgess knows the tune you dance to."

"And what tune would that be?" he asked with a weary sigh, fairly sure he knew the answer.

"Justice," said River simply.

"Great," groaned Mal quietly as they came to the gate of Caroline Burgess's home. Having morals could be a real _hóulóngténg _sometimes.

They were ushered inside with polite speed to a fancy parlor where a full service of high tea with all the trimmings had been set out. Mal was reminded of Badger's attempts at gentility and was curious to see how they were going to stack up as compared to the real thing.

"Nice spread," remarked Jayne with approval, helping himself to a plate or two of the food and sitting down.

The servants told them that Mrs. Burgess was very pleased they had come and would be joining them shortly, as soon as she had brought the baby to the nursery.

_Baby?_ Mal mouthed silently to the others in confusion.

Inara's eyes briefly flicked to River questioningly, but River merely lightly touched a finger to her lips with a little smile. She went over to the table and poured herself a cup of tea with all the solemnness of a religious ritual, and, grabbing a cucumber sandwich to munch on, perched herself delicately on the armrest of the chair Jayne had appropriated. He ignored her as he proceeded to make inroads on a plate of cookies. Inara and Mal stayed standing, as alert as a pair of greyhounds before a race, although Inara was hiding it slightly better.

The door opened and Mrs. Burgess came in, wiping her hands on a small towel. There was a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. She tucked the cloth in a pocket as she swept her gaze around the room, taking them in and quickly shifting her expression to a bright social smile.

"Mr. Reynolds, I'm so glad you could make it." She turned her gaze on Inara. "And I don't believe we were introduced before," she said lightly, as if the time she had met Inara hadn't been hours before her husband's death.

Inara made a graceful curtsey that was probably something she had been vigorously trained in since the first day she entered the Guild. "Inara Serra, formally of House Madrassa, now of the crew of Captain Malcolm Reynolds," she said with proud ceremony, making it sound as though being part of Serenity's crew was to be part of a royal household.

"And these are also part of the crew?" asked Caroline, glancing at the incongruous sight of Jayne and River sitting next to each other, Jayne wolfing down the cookies and River delicately sipping her tea, pinkie finger extended.

"The big one's one of my gun hands, Jayne Cobb," introduced Mal. Jayne made a little grunt noise of acknowledgement. "The little one, River, she'd be my pilot, best in the 'verse."

River smiled at Mal and Mrs. Burgess. "Pleasure to make you acquaintance," she said with just as much charm as the Core bred debutante, that, born with a few less brain cells, she might have been. She gave Caroline a sharper second glance. "Your hands are very clean," she remarked with a thoughtful frown.

"Uh, thank you," said Caroline, non pulsed.

"So, what's the job?" asked Mal bluntly, to distract Caroline from River's latest _non sequitur_, and also not really in the mood for the time consuming social graces. "You said it was some kind of drop off?"

Caroline poured herself a cup of tea and sat in the largest armchair in the room, more like a throne than a chair, unperturbed by Mal jumping straight to the main point. "It's slightly more complicated than that," said the widow, without a tinge of abashment at her initial misleading description.

"It usually is," said Mal dryly. "Thing is, we keep our ears to the ground, so to speak, and things we've heard suggest that things on Deadwood are about to get… interesting. Might that have anything to do with this slightly complicated job? You were a bit vague as to the details," he added. He picked up a sandwich off the tray, and, leaning against the table casually, took a bite and munched in his best devil-may-care façade.

"I prefer to always keep details close the vest, rather than broadcasting them across the verse," Caroline said pleasantly, "I'm sure you'll understand when I say I didn't want to reveal too much over the waves."

Mal swallowed the rest of the sandwich in two gulps. "So what are these complications?" he asked, trying not to growl as he prodded the point of the conversation like a stubborn mule.

"There's going to be a meeting tonight. I've sent word out and most of the folk on this world a few nearby ones will be there. I want to hire you and your crew," she gestured slightly with her tea cup at Jayne, "as gun hands for crowd control, and then act as a… martial escort to any who wish to get off world after the meeting when decisions are made about the new direction things will be going in."

Mal scratched his chin nonchalantly, "Way I hear it," he said casually, careful not to look in River's direction, "you're planning something big."

"Do you know your Earth-That-Was history?"

"Yes, but I reckon you're about to lecture me anyway to make some sort of point," he sighed.

Caroline gave him a sour smile at his quip before starting: "The Roman Empire brought peace, prosperity, civilization, indoor plumbing, medicine, education, and much more to the far flung parts of the globe they claimed. They delivered on campaign promises in a way that would never again be close to be replicated by succeeding civilizations."

She paused to take a sip of tea.

"But when they fell, they fell hard. They became too big, and those in charge had too much power. The empire provided everything needed for absolute power, and, as they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. And, as big and powerful as the Roman Empire was, that's nothing compared to the Alliance."

"Gottcha, you think the Alliance's has got too big for its britches, no argument here," agreed Mal. "So what?"

"Tomorrow the Alliance is going to be smaller by one moon."

"You really are _actually_ going to secede?" asked Mal. "_Wu__h tzai chien shr ee-ding ruh dao shuh-muh run luh bah_!" he swore reverently under his breath.

River had informed him of a few intuitive flashes she had, as well as the facts she'd put together from the strings she observed being pulled so far, of supplies being surreptitiously moved around, of interesting lists of people being contacted by Mrs. Burgess, but, as prepared as he was for this course of events, hearing it out loud from the instigator herself still managed to flat foot him.

"I anticipate quite a lot of support from other Rim worlds," said Caroline.

Mal almost wanted to stomp across the room and slap the smug look off her face.

Instead he settled for rubbing his forehead in frustration. "Why am I getting the biggest scene of déjà-vu?" he asked. Then, without waiting for an answer he snapped, "Oh, right, I saw that little tragedy play out seven years ago, _and I know how it ends_."

"It'll be different this time," said Caroline confidently, taking another sip of tea.

"Why?" he snapped.

"I've got a few cards up my sleeve, starting with some actual concrete facts regarding Miranda. Since the Alliance isn't providing any answers, I've decided to step up and provide the information I have about the Wave."

Mal shifted his weight slightly, trying to keep on the mask of simple smuggler and gun hand, trying to look like an ordinary criminal who didn't know anything more about Miranda than anyone else who'd seen the Wave, trying very hard not to look like the person who'd started it. Whatever she had to say, he'd pretend it was the first time he'd heard it.

But River made the whole pretense unnecessary as she decided to pipe up. "A time for every purpose under the heavens," she sing-songed. "Now is the time for the truth," she said. "Two and two are stronger together. She is two and we are two – add up the pieces to make the picture bigger."

"Eh? What's the _nian ching de_ talking about?" asked Caroline, sounding like she was deviating from a script for the first time.

River pointed at Mal. "_Bàba_ got the word out." She smiled proudly at her surrogate father. "Lit the sky with the fire of truth. Gave voice to the dead."

"Captain Reynolds," Caroline said slowly, "What do _you _know about the Miranda Wave?"

"Give her the highlights," suggested River cheerfully as she snagged a cookie from Jayne's plate.

"You sure Lil' Albatross?" asked Mal.

River gave him a look of scorn for doubting her.

Mal sighed heavily, reminding himself that if he was going to drag a psychic along for every ride, he better start listening to her. He quickly tried to think of the best way to present the facts without revealing too much.

"Weeeell" he said, dragging the word out to buy a few more seconds, "long story cut really, _really_ short – my pilot here was in pretty much the worst of wrong places at the wrong time and, basically, uh, _overheard_ some higher up's knowledge of what had happened on Miranda."

He glanced at River, who gave him an encouraging nod. Inara slipped her hand into his as he went on: "When they realized what she knew she was already running, so the Alliance sent some _problem solvers_ after her to shut her up. She ended up on my ship getting the hell out of the Core, trying to outstrip the Alliance reach." No need to go into the details of that particular fiasco of a 'simple' passenger run, he thought to himself.

"When I realized how those that were after her were willing to kill anyone, and I do mean anyone, around her…" He took a breath and Inara squeezed his hand reassuringly as he thought of all those who had died at the hand of the Alliance in their brutal effort to reclaim River, "me and mine went to find out more, figuring dying digging up the truth was better than just waiting for them to come kill us. River led us to what was left of the Miranda colony where we found the recording. So… we sent the Miranda Wave."

He closed his eyes wearily, thinking of all the people who had been killed because the Alliance was unwilling to admit it ever made a mistake.

He opened his eyes and looked pointedly at Mrs. Burgess, waiting for her reaction.

Utter silence from Caroline Burgess, her mouth actually hanging open in shock as she stared at him, bug eyed. Then she threw her head back and laughed uproariously.

When she managed to get her breath back, shaking her head in disbelief, she exclaimed reverently, "The gods look down and _laugh_! _Ni zhen bushi yiban ren_!"

"We can offer you proof. Maps, recordings," added River.

Caroline looked at her. "I… believe you. It's too unbelievable to not be true. And," she gave a soft snort and added softly, more to herself than the others, "I was raised to accept things on faith now and then."

"And what do you have to offer?" asked Mal, irritable at her laughing.

She sobered, and said in a more or less calm voice, "When we secede, we're going to have Greenleaf on our side."

"Greenleaf?" Mal found himself casting his mind back to battles and strategic military plans. "Greenleaf wasn't that big in the grand scheme of things. It was a major thorn in the Independent's side to have a pro-Alliance world that far out, but there weren't any major shipping routes that way or military bases. All it did was serve as a good place for the Alliance to help themselves to-" he stopped, mid thought, as it hit him.

Caroline Burgess smiled as she saw him catching up. "Medical supplies, that's right, Captain Reynolds. Pharmaceutical supplies for things like hospitals, and ships, and, oh, you know, air processers for newly colonized worlds."

"That gorram killer air came from Greenleaf?" asked Jayne, crashing into the conversation.

She nodded placidly. "Yes Mr. Cobb. The Pax was never meant to leave Greenleaf. It was a failed experiment, and should have been tossed in the trash and never been allowed on a single human trial, let alone the numbers the Alliance exposed it to. The people of Greenleaf take the Hippocratic Oath seriously. I should know - I grew up there. I was raised to believe that there is nothing wrong from making a good profit from good work, but it has to be _good work_."

"Ok, so Greenleaf is mad enough about Miranda to go along with this madcap idea of yours," summed up Mal. "Still don't see how that'll make a major difference this time around."

"Greenleaf is willing to supply anything needed to show the Alliance we mean business."

Mal blinked, taking the implications of that in. "How bad is this going to get?" he asked, echoing his question from earlier.

Caroline paused, weighing her words, before she answered. "I want my daughter to grow up free, living her life without worrying about being poisoned by her own government. And to achieve that freedom, no matter how you slice it, people are going to get hurt. If you want to leave, there is the door," she said imperiously.

Then she put down her teacup and stood up to cross the room and stand right in front of Mal.

"I supported Unification. God forgive me, I was wrong." She held out her hand. "Please, help me make it right."

Mal, alarm bells ringing in his head, grasped her hand in agreement because he felt there was no other choice. For all her silk and social graces, it was like talking with a general. _Hell_, he thought to himself, _they say politics makes for some strange bedfellows. _

"So," he asked conversationally, as the momentous moment passed, "You have a daughter?"

She smiled, a real smile, not a social smile or a polite nothing, but an honest look of happiness as she told him, "Her name's Belinda." She held up a hand, as if to physically forestall questions, "And yes, she's adopted, and no, there were no threats involved – the birth mother wasn't interested in childrearing."

After going over some more details of Caroline's initial plans, and few more cups of tea, Mal got Zoe on the comm link and told her to get over to the Widow Burgess's as fast as she could tear Simon and Kaylee away from the drooling kid. Zoe was probably going to kill him when she found out what he'd signed them up for – no need to put off the inevitable.

However, when the three arrived, Zoe's face remained placid as he explained what was going on. Kaylee and Simon were the ones full of questions, which Mal mostly ignored, letting the others fill them in. Caroline distracted Simon by asking if he would be willing to give her daughter a check up.

"I'm a surgeon, not a pediatrician," he muttered under his breath, but managed to dredge up his best manners and agreed and smiled as Caroline lead him to her daughter's nursery.

As the two left the room, Mal eyes remained on Zoe, worried for many reasons, not the least of which was knowing that, for all that people commented on how he was the one that had never let the war go, the silent secret he and Zoe shared was how he'd been the one who'd had to forcibly take the gun from Zoe and be the one to tell her, to _order_ her, to stop fighting. And now he was the one to tell her he'd signed them up to be center stage for a new cause.

She didn't look surprised.

"It will be different this time," said Zoe. It wasn't a question.

"One can only hope," said Mal, with his best we-are-so-screwed smile.

* * *

Mal and company were at the town hall that night, well before the meeting was due to start, ready for what promised to possibly be one for the history books. Mal was getting a little tired of witnessing events that scholars were sure to turn into dry academic papers long after he was dead.

The town hall, a building that acted as the location for town meetings, the schoolhouse and occasional courtroom, quickly overflowed, and the meeting relocated to the nearby soccer pitch. A platform was hastily erected and some basic loudspeaker equipment was dragged out from the theater.

There was a lot of chatter, but when Caroline took the stage an expectant hush fell over the crowd.

"As you all know," she began, "I've issued an invitation across our little world for anyone interested hearing about the Miranda Wave and, more importantly, what we're going to do about it." She a lunched into a short speech explaining how the Pax had been plucked from the garbage bins of Greenleaf to turn those that the Core looked down on into guinea pigs in an effort to make them better puppets.

"And have they even so much as _apologized_?" she asked angrily. "Let alone done anything to try and make restitution? No!" There were murmurs of agreement from the crowd, people nodding to each other. Was this the same rush her husband had felt to get the crowd to sway to his words, Caroline wondered. It was an intoxicating feeling.

"What happened on Miranda was not an act of God, not some simple technical mishap, it was a _criminal_ act, and, worse, a crime that the Alliance refuses to acknowledge as such, prattling on about their _good intentions_, and never mind they delivered good Rim folk, settlers like you an' me, down the road to hell."

A few yells of assent came from the crowd.

"I put it to you, to all of you," she said, her voice taking a slightly lower class accent, an appeal to the rest, "by no other authority than being mad enough by this injustice to speak up, I put it to a vote, yes or no, do we take a first stand, here and now, declare our independence, and tell them the abuse, the corruption, the deaths, stop here? Do we draw a line in the sand, here and now, and say 'enough'?"

There were murmurs of agreement in the crowd.

"I say we tell the Alliance and anyone else who would meddle in what is none of their business to go to hell, and declare that we won't be their chess pieces and guinea pigs any more!"

The murmurs were growing louder.

"Do we declare we have the right _to breath?_" she asked provocatively.

"Yes!" the crowd cried together.

"Do we agree we have the right to make our own decisions?"

"YES!"

"Yes or no, do we vote that we no longer a part of the Alliance?"

"**YES!!!**" the crowd was one full throated roar.

There were cheers and hollers. Laughing triumphantly, Caroline asked the crowd, "I say that we change our name to fit the new times! No longer the moon Deadwood, this is the world of _Liberty_! Do you agree?"

Another full roar of assent from the crowd.

Cutting through the noise, a panicked voice called out, "This is insane!" It was the magistrate, looking absolutely appalled at what he had walked into. Clearly no one had bothered to invite him to the meeting.

"Ah, my dear magistrate," said Caroline, looking straight at him but speaking loud enough for the whole crowd to hear, "I do believe your position has just become obsolete."

There were some snickers in the crowd. He simply gaped at her.

"You are free to join the new government of Liberty, and run for a new position, or you can leave, it is your choice."

"You can't just-" he started to protest

"I do believe we just did," she said, cutting him off before he could start listing the many problems they were going to have to face. No need to dampen the crowd's morale right away.

"The Alliance will not take this lying down!" he said, his voice high and panicky as several hands grabbed his arms.

"Captain Reynolds," called out Caroline loudly, "please escort the former magistrate off world." She turned her gaze back to crowd and said with a smirk, "After all, someone has to deliver our declaration back to the Core."

* * *

**Translations**

**Mandarin:**

_mei-mei_ – little sister

_jie-jie – _older sister

_hudun _- bastard

_Renzi de shang di_ - Merciful God

_hóulóngténg_ - pain in the neck

_Wuh tzai chien shr ee-ding ruh dao shuh-muh run luh bah_ - I surely annoyed someone or other in a past life, didn't I?

_bàba_ - papa

_nian ching de _- little one

_Ni zhen bushi yiban ren_ – This is unbelievable


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

**A/N** – Sorry for the delay folks! Also, the nickname River mentions I lifted from the fanfic 'Fable' by EreshkigalGirl

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**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Eleven**

Zoe was in a meditative mood.

_Serenity_ was headed back to the moon once known as Deadwood by the few who had ever heard of it, and now known as Liberty by practically the whole 'verse. It had been almost a year now since they'd first touched down there on that dusty patch of earth to help a group protect what was theirs from another's claim. And now they were doing much the same thing, albeit on a larger scale.

The work went on, but they were also invited to Jonah's first birthday party. Conflict and political upheaval were raging across the 'verse, but the ordinary things, like a baby's first birthday, were still being celebrated.

It was late in the ship's night cycle now, and Zoe had volunteered for what was still known, centuries after ships had taken from seas to the skies, as the 'dog watch,' the sailors' terminology still being used as the cosmic life was not all that different from the nautical one.

She switched the power on of the long range radio. She wondered how the early settlers had been able to manage – back in the old days before inter-stellar triangulated communications – those colonists only able to send waves intra-planetary, in system, forced to bounce messages around in a complicated network of stations and satellites where half the time the message had been lost between systems.

Zoe kept the volume on a low setting as she adjusted to the different frequencies, searching for someone to listen to, to give the allusion of company as the rest of the ship slept. A burst of static, and then a cajoling woman's voice came over the waves:

_*bzzt*_

_-know Madame Morwen has the answers! See what the stars have in store for you! Come for a reading, conveniently located on Yang Liwei Space Station's C deck, next to the main parking area. Open- _

_*bzzt*_

She flipped the dial again and another woman's voice, singing a soft melody of childhood memories, floated over the waves:

_bu yao ku rang ying huo chong dai zhe ni tao pao / xiang jian de ge yao yong yuan de yi kao / tong nian de zhi fei ji xian zai zhong yu fei hui wo shou li- _

_*bzzt*_

She clicked through some more wavelengths:

_*bzzt*-_

_limited time offer, order your copy now for just a monthly rate-_

_*bzzt*_

_Smilin' Joe guarantees his cleaning system will filter out anything THEY pump into your atmo, now for the low, low price of-_

_*bzzt*_

_- a pair of three-run homers while Carl Becket and Jiang Jieshi each added a long ball of their own as the Isaacville Rockets captured a 11-3 victory over the New Paris Lions marking a stunning conclusion to the Londinium playoffs-_

_*bzzt*_

_-I'd like to teach the Verse to sing / in perfect harmony / and buy them all a __Fēicháng_ _Cola / it's the real thing-_

_*bzzt*_

Zoe snorted in amused exasperation as she idly spun the dial around. Things couldn't be that bad if things like soda sales and baseball finals were continuing as smoothly as that.

Further adjustments to the radio brought the sounds of something classical, evoking the imagery of men wearing velvet jackets and powdered wigs, but it didn't quite fit her mood, so she searched some more until the soft notes of smoky jazz wafted through the ether.

Zoe listened to the jazz and remembered night watches in the past on the bridge with Wash, listening to music like this.

Thinking of Wash was a minefield. Some days she was able to remember his laugh, his smile, his jokes, his love, and be happy, knowing she had experienced something so few people did. Other days, the mere sight of where he usually sat at the table would force her to hastily excuse herself from the meal, citing nausea, and retreat to her room, where she was inevitably followed by one or more of the crew.

Her room was now in the passenger area, since Simon had shown his rarely seen metal/doctor-spine and insisted that since she was now in her third trimester, she refrain from going up and down ladders.

She had agreed to the logic, violently pushing away the useless emotion of sorrow and anger that rose up in her at losing a link to her days with Wash, because she knew she had to do what was best for the baby. But the passenger dorms certainly made it easier for people to access her when she most wanted to be left alone.

When Mal came after her he would swing back and forth between awkward inquires to how she was doing and thoughtful reminiscences on times they had shared. While Inara had still been on board she had invariably came by with little speeches on love, life and death, and how they were all One, sounding like a silk draped _bhikkhuni_.

Simon would insist on barging in for health checks and engage in the kind of by-route bedside manner that was probably a class in med school, while Kaylee would come in and pretend to have to fix some wiring or lighting problem in the room and chatter on about her nephews and nieces in extended Frye family back home on Zephyr and how babies were so much fun and how everyone on board was going to be there to help Zoe.

Even Jayne stopped by a time or two, usually to give some gruffly mumbled baby care advice, picked up from having five younger sisters.

River would occasionally be the one to arrive when Zoe was trying to shut people away. The young girl would usually solemnly place her hand on Zoe's increasing bump, and say something cryptic about 'oh nest of spicary' that Zoe took to mean the baby was doing well.

Simon certainly kept reassuring her that everything was proceeding on schedule, that she was doing great, and that the baby was healthy, and that he didn't anticipate any problems with the birth. He repeated himself often, she noticed with wry amusement, seeming to be trying to assure himself rather than her. And she had noticed him stocking up with extra supplies in the infirmary and reading up on any and all gynecology texts he download off the Cortex.

She had mentioned at one point that he hadn't gotten half so worked up over delivering Petaline's child. He had smiled self depreciatingly and said that he hadn't had as long to remember all the things that can wrong, as well as knowing that in this case the captain would space if anything went wrong with delivering Zoe's baby.

'Zoe's baby' was the official appellation the crew had given the unborn child, although Mal was still inclined to make references to 'the Stowaway,' thinking he was being funny. Zoe still hadn't decided on a name, two names, to be precise, since she had told Simon to leave her the surprise of whether it was a boy or a girl. She'd already considered and rejected dozens of names so far, none of them sounding quite right. As if knowing her thoughts, the baby started kicking.

She rested on her hands on her much enlarged belly, delighting, as ever, in feeling the feeling of the baby's movements. A few months back the touch had been feather light, leaving her wondering at first if she was just imagining she felt her child stirring, but soon it had been stronger, like she had swallowed a cloud of butterflies, and now the baby was making it abundantly clear that the space currently occupied was becoming much too small.

"Not long now," she told the baby in a soft tone. "Patience, little one." The baby kicked again. "Tired of jazz?" she asked, amused. "I suppose 'Coltrane' is off the name list then."

She chuckled as the baby continued to shift. She switched the radio again and landed on a talk show:

_-so called "Republic" these yokels have set up is not only an illegal breach of everything the Alliance has set up in the way of government, it's a joke, utterly laughable that a handful of hicks could-_

_-If I might jump right in-_ interrupted a second voice, -_but you have to remember these 'hicks,' as you call them, have already evicted Alliance representatives from twelve Rim and Border worlds, including Greenleaf and Rosetta__**,**__ two __**hardly**__ low class words, and have forced the Alliance reps there back to the Core, one of them quite literally gift wrapped-_

Zoe smiled in pleased remembrance; the large red bow the Deadwood magistrate had been tied up in before being unceremoniously dumped on the steps of Parliament House in New Paris had been River's idea.

_-An uncalled _kuh wu _act of hostility!-_ The first voice shouted angrily.

_-Chairwoman Burgess-_ started the second voice.

_-Chairwoman? Please, spare me the ridiculous airs these criminals are giving themselves. This_ zuò xiǎojiě da jeh da _they got-_ sneered the first voice.

_-Madame Chairwoman Burgess-_ repeated the second voice in a less moderate tone, _-stated clearly that it was a rational response to previous acts of violence by the _hwo gai_ Alliance-_

_-that's the pot calling the kettle black, you-_ started the first voice, and the two voices started shouting insults at one another, until they were both indistinguishable as they yelled on top of one another.

Zoe adjusted the frequency to try and find a slightly less… _passionate_ news report. She found a dry report being read in the crisp tones of someone from either Victoria or one of the moons of that planet, Diana and Elizabeth:

_-and the Alliance fleet was again forced to turn back after yet another sabotaged air filtration system rendered the crews of all seventy-seven ships ill for six days. As promised by Chairwoman Burgess, there were no fatalities, although she has recently issued a statement that she will no longer restrain from using non-permanent methods on uninvited Alliance ships in areas that have been declared part of the new Republic- _

Zoe smiled. It actually felt good being part of the news again. She remembered days back during the Unification War, now more often being referred to as 'The Old War,' when she and Mal would occasionally get a hold of a battered but working radio or a yellowed newspaper and read or listen to reports of battles they had been in the forefront of.

The 'filtration attack' being used now had been Mrs. Burgess's idea. She somehow had contacts on Greenleaf able to supply her with the standard chemicals used in Alliance ships, altered slightly to make anyone breathing the air sick enough to have to get off the ship before it had reached its destination.

'_Turnabout is fair play'_ the chairwoman had coldly told members of her hastily formed proto-government. She had stressed, first to those she had told her plans to, and then to everyone in mass broadcasts, that the sabotage would be non-lethal (to start) to make the initial point clear: the Republic was off limits to Alliance so called "peacekeeping" forces.

The Alliance had yet to concede the point, but Mrs. Burgess's successful implementation of her strategy had bought the newly formed Republic quite a lot of breathing space as they got things set up.

Zoe smiled. No one was quite sure how 'Madame Chairwoman' had pulled it off. She seemed to have a deft hand at arranging for several seperate pieces to come together at the last moment, making sure that no one but herself knew what the big picture was to protect plans from any danger of interference.

Meanwhile, River had helped Simon make several leaps in treating her. A new combination of prescriptions that she had recommended gave her a full afternoon of clarity; Simon actually shed a few tears as he spoke with the girl she had once been and the rest of the crew were shocked to see the difference in her a she calmly gave instructions on what he needed to do next, and also took the time to warmly thank everyone else for all the help they had given her since she had come on board.

However, when Simon had something about her being 'back,' she had snapped at him that she was not, nor wished to be, the naïve and stuck up little girl she had once been.

When he had tried to protest, she had cut him off quickly, telling him her brain had made her believe that she was smarter than everyone else, leading her to walk stupidly straight into the cage the Alliance had set up – and had earned her the nickname 'Prima Bitcherina' back in dance class. She was ready, she told him, to grow up. And Simon ceased his objections.

River then turned the infirmary into a laboratory, somehow making some new drug combinations by hand as well as assembling some complex looking equipment that Simon explained, only slightly baffled at her ability to put it together with only spare parts from around the ship, would help worth adjusting the electro-magnet timbre of her brain waves to further get her back to normality.

The last time they had been on the newly christened Liberty, River had helped Mrs. Burgess set up more long wave broadcasts. The woman put her own severity to good use, showing herself on camera to be a leader willing to step up and take charge, again and again citing as she spoke to people across the Rim and Border that they were receiving no help from the Core, so they had to help themselves.

She had started off wearing gowns of solid white, symbolically showing her grief for all those had died on Miranda, but in her more recent speeches was wearing brighter colors, vivid and energetic, as she asked for support.

Former Independent factions, both civilian supporters and veteran soldiers, were crawling from the woodwork, their passion for the cause re-kindled by the proof that the Alliance did not know what was best for them, the slogans of 'The Right to Breath,' and 'Remember Miranda' chanted and plastered everywhere.

However, Madame Chairwoman was always quick to reiterate in broadcasts that this wasn't a reformation of the Independents – this was a cause that embraced the whole of the Rim and Border territories, stressing that everyone, no matter what the side they had taken in the previous conflict, had to unite to guarantee their safety from those who had killed their own in their well intentioned meddling.

Mrs. Burgess had personally asked Inara to journey to the more pro-Alliance areas to court people from the former Companion's old social circles. The 'Tea and Talk' campaign, she had named it, shrewdly guessing that there were a lot of people who could be won over with sweet talk a lot quicker than with displays of force.

Mal and Inara had talked a long time about it, and when she left on her mission, their good bye had been so sweet it left Jayne gagging and Kaylee cooing, already making wedding plans for her favorite captain and _jie-jie_.

Zoe shook her head sadly; Kaylee didn't seem to realize that things were on the edge of a major shake up – Inara was the first, but would not be the last to leave the group. Zoe suspected they would all soon be going in different directions – they were needed in different places.

She knew Caroline had already started talking with Simon about the logistics of setting up a main army hospital for the Republic with perhaps a fleet of medic ships serving as ambulances and field hospitals. And Kaylee's skills would probably be needed in one of the junkyards where people were scrambling to make old junkers space worthy again for the cause.

The Alliance were finding their representatives continually pushed from the Border and Rim and their forces unable to get in; it hadn't come to battles yet, but-

The comm link began to beep insistently. They were being hailed by… Zoe peered closer at the signature…Monty? The proximity light started flashing as well, chirping in an annoying staccato, both demanding her attention.

She flicked the alert off and opened up the comm link and returned the hail. "Monty, you sasquatch, what brings you to this neck of the woods?"

"_Zoe?_" The voice of the old war buddy came over the waves. "_Thank the frick-fracking gods._"

Zoe rubbed the bridge of her nose tiredly even as she felt the adrenaline start to pump. She knew that tone of voice – it meant Monty had bad news of the variety of he had done something that caused troubled that was going to effect everyone else.

" '_Heard a rumor you and Mal were putting together a fleet for this new republic_," said Monty hopefully.

Yep. Trouble. "We're still running cargo." Zoe smiled and let a hint of maliciousness creep into her tone, "mostly dumping Alliance trash."

"_Yeah, the bow was a nice touch_," he said hurriedly. "_Listen, you fitted the old _fei wu_ with any weapon upgrades_?"

"Just a few laser cannons."

"To ma duh," he swore mildly. "_Well, it'll have to do_."

"Monty?" she asked calmly and steadily, "what did you do?"

"_Well, I'm hauling supplies and a bunch of volunteers - God they are such __kids__ - to the recruiting station the Chairwoman got set up on Artemisia. Uh, but_," he hesitated.

"Spit it out, soldier," barked Corporal Zoë Alleyne.

"_Ran into an Alliance patrol and we showed 'em what we think of the interfering _ung jeong jia ching jien soh_ with a few shots, and now we got a whole gorram squad on our tail_."

"Great," groaned Zoë. "How long 'till we see fire?"

"_About two minutes_."

Zoe slammed her fist on the all ship alert and barked into the intra-ship com unit: "Attention everyone!! Enemy ships approaching! We will see fire in less than two minutes! Kaylee, get to the engine room, now! I need our pilot's _pigu_ up here **now**! Everyone ready for battle stations and report in! Repeat, full alert, enemy ships approaching. We _will_ be seeing fire!"

She put the ship klaxon alarm on for good measure.

River came running in at full speed, looking deceptively cute and disheveled in a pair of white flannel pajamas and her hair still sleep tossed.

"Situation?" River asked succinctly as she strapped herself into the adjacent seat.

"Monty decided to pick a fight before the war even officially began," snapped Zoe.

River made a noise of angry frustration.

"Didn't see this coming?" asked Zoe, more or less calmly, her eyes never leaving the screen.

River began pounding instructions into the console. "Stupidity cannot be mathematically factored," she growled.

Mal came stumbling onto the bridge, still hastily pulling on his clothes.

Zoe started to explain but Monty interrupted from the screen: "_Mal, you there? Just like old times, eh_?" he chuckled.

"Yeah, just like," grumbled Mal. "Give me a sit-rep, soldier," he said, still buttoning his shirt.

The intra-ship com buzzed: "_Zoe, I'm in the engine room, and I've got Simon with me, what's going on?_" asked Kaylee, her voice shaky, just a shade away from panic.

"Kaylee, listen to me," instructed Zoe calmly, ignoring Mal as he talked with Monty, "get the engine going to full capacity and get ready to deal with anything that's about to go wrong. We're about to ask a lot from our girl, so do what you can to get ready. Tell Simon to help with what he can, but he's got be ready to drop everything for a possible triage soon. Got that?"

"_Got it_," said Kaylee, a bit more confidently.

The proximity alarm started going off again and the com began spouting multiple transmissions, most from the five Alliance patrol boats, demanding both _Serenity_ and Monty's _Annabel_ halt and prepare for bordering, along with the usual threats of non-compliance would result in the use of force.

Jayne came bustling in, strapped with so many weapons he looked like a walking arsenal. River glanced at him. "If it comes to hand to hand combat, then we've already lost," she said calmly.

"We'll see, genius," was the best Jayne could shoot back.

Mal was flipping switches to bring the laser cannons online, muttering curses under his breath.

"Not the time for traditional tactics, Captain" said River flatly, sounding like a strategy officer instead of her usual semi-psychotic little-girl self. "They are going to swat us like a gadfly unless we disable their flyswatter."

"You work on that," said Mal, half listening.

"No hemlock today," agreed River.

From outside the cockpit glass everyone could see Monty rashly deciding to be the one to fire the first shot, barely pinging the Alliance boat it hit, but apparently being enough for them to retaliate in full force.

"Incoming!" Zoe yelled into the comm. "_Da jee-ah tzwo sha_!" she shouted, and everyone on the bridge clutched onto something as the blast hit and caused a deep shuddering throughout the ship.

Zoe took over the cannon controls as Mal took the helm, Kaylee providing the speed needed as they attempted to dodge the Alliance shots and return fire.

Several blasts later, from all sides, more alarms were going off from the panels, and Zoe could smell the distinct smell of burnt wiring coming from down the corridor.

"I can't jam them, I can't jam them," said River frantically as she continued to stab at the consol buttons, her eyes widening as she encountered a problem she couldn't solve. Her hysteria suddenly dissolved as she gave a little giggle as she said, "But I can pour syrup on them."

She punched more buttons and shouted into the comm., "Attention _Annabel_, you are about to lose all communications, repeat, Monty and crew, you are about to lose all communications. Follow us to reach safe harbor."

River seemed to be doing two separate tasks with each hand as she accessed different systems, then, with more force than necessary, pressed one final button to activate her solution.

An almost perceptible electromagnet pulse went through the ether and a sickly sweet, syrupy pop music began to play, tweaked to a speeded up and high pitched level of squeakiness reserved for screaming hamsters onamphetamines, a sound beyond irritating, so bad it suggested an ice pick to the brain as a logical solution to make it stop.

"What the gorram-" bellowed Mal.

River flicked another switch and blessed silence followed.

"-hell," he finished lamely in the quiet.

She smiled broadly. "All ships in the area will hear that and nothing else no matter what frequency they use. All abilities to send orders of any kind have been covered in that coding."

"And when those Alliance patrol boats just turn their comms off too? What then?" he demanded.

"Then they can't use their equipment – its either silence and do nothing, or attempt to work with the _nánháizi yuè duì_ from hell tap dancing on their auditory senses."

She grinned like an evil little cat, clearly enjoying someone else suffering scrambled brain patterns for a change. "They can't talk to each other, or tell their ships what to do – or call for back up." She turned back to the helm and began re-plotting their course. "But we need to get out of here. Now. Syrup will only buy so much time in a fight."

Zoe glanced at the clock as River punched it; while the numbers showed that the whole incident from Monty's hail to now as _Serenity_ and _Annabel_ high tailed it for Liberty had been less than ten minutes, it had felt so much longer.

Zoe breathed slowly and calmly, trying to will her adrenaline levels back down. She stood up, and promptly sat back down again, as a shooting pain lanced through her, so sudden and fierce that she couldn't stop the groan of pain escaping her lips. Everyone immediately rushed towards her, with Mal bellowing down the corridor for Simon to get his _pigu_ up to the bridge, pronto.

"I'm…" she began, but before she could get to the word 'fine' she felt something else, and realized her water had just broke. "Thanks for waiting," she said ruefully, hand to her side as she felt the baby move again.

_Fēicháng_ _Cola – "_Future Cola", a real soda sold in China

_Bhikkhuni_ – Buddhist nun

_kuh wu_ - despicable

_hwo gai_ - deserving of bad consequence or fate

_jie-jie – _older sister

_da jeh da_ – female gang leader

_zuò xiǎojiě_ – bargirl, slang for prostitute

_Fei wu_ - Junk

_To Ma Duh_ - Damn it

_Ung jeong jia Ching Jien Soh_ - Filthy fornicator of livestock

_Pigu_ – ass

_Da jee-ah tzwo sha! _Everybody sit down!

_nánháizi yuè duì – _boy band

_bu yao ku rang ying huo chong dai zhe ni tao pao, xiang jian de ge yao yong yuan de yi kao, tong nian de zhi fei ji xian zai zhong yu fei hui wo shou li_ – Lyrics from the song Zoe listens to are from a Chinese pop song "Zhi Fei Ji" (Paper Plane) by Sandy Lam; lyrics translate to: "Don't cry. Let the fireflies take you away / Leaning forever on the countryside´s ballad / Childhood's paper plane flies from my hands."


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

**Author's note:** opening scene is either a homage or rip off (depending on your point of view) of the Lyndon Johnson presidential campaign "Daisy" commercial.

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**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Twelve**

The sun was bright, but not too bright, the sky a brilliant blue, the grass green and lush, crops growing tall in the background, and the pretty little farmhouse in the middle ground was invitingly cozy.

It was typical of the ideal outer world, a Jeffersonian paradise, the open space, tidy lines of crops, lush greenery, and welcoming homestead all suggesting a life of honest, hard work, of simple pleasures, of a balanced _feng shui_, and a life unencumbered by the machinations of the urbane Core.

A group of children, from babies only just crawling to gangly legged kids playing double-dutch jump rope, played in a little grassy area in the foreground. A woman sat under a tree near the children, rocking an adorable baby in her arms as she watched over the children with smiling benevolence.

The woman had skin the color of coffee with cream, the baby with skin the color of tea and milk. She could have easily been posing for a portrait of the Virgin Mary or Kuan Yin as she held the baby, serenity on her face, as the baby gummed the ear of a teddy bear - innocence personified.

The children looked like they could have come from a dozen different worlds along the Border and Rim, but all looking clean, nourished, and prettily dressed in quaint lower class clothes, all playing with the look of carefree joy.

One of the little girls, no older than three, toddled a little ways from the group and picked a flower and began to pluck the petals. Two little boys still in diapers industrially piled dirt up to make little castles.

The three children playing jump rope sang:

_Yee err san, _

_Pá__ dà shân_

_see woo lieu, _

_Jir dee zayǔ,_

_chee… gah… __**BIEU**__! _

As the children sang out the last word of the counting rhyme, there was a corresponding **BOOM!**, worse than thunder, and suddenly everything was drenched in reds and oranges, and a mushroom cloud arouse into the heavens.

All was darkness and then _…Please…_ a young female voice begged the viewer in a tone of abject pity. _Let us live._

Jian Sheng's cover of 'Let It Be' began to play as the flag of the Republic waved and facts about the most extreme cases of the Alliance's past use of force against civilians scrolled across the screen.

The screen froze and Mrs. Burgess, Chairwoman of the Republic, frowned judiciously at the image.

"Well?" asked the young tech anxiously, clearing hoping the chairwoman approved his latest propaganda piece.

"Flawless post-production," she complimented. "You'd think that was shot on a real moon."

The tech, a young man who couldn't have seen more than twenty summers, grinned. "A grand total of thirty six different worlds went into making the footage of that perfect little scene."

Caroline hit the rewind button below the screen and went back to the screenshot before the blast.

"Dial back the background light about 15% so the kids stand out," she ordered. "I want the background vibrant, but not so much it overwhelms the main subjects, and then brighten the flare in the next scene to emphasize the flames."

"Yes'mam," he said, already clicking away.

"I want this to really stick in the audience's mind – it has to stand out from the million other commercials they'll see that day," she commented.

"Madame Chairwoman, no one is able to forget _your_ commercials," he said, his tone somewhere between joking and awed.

She allowed herself the satisfaction of knowing that was true. When she started doing propaganda for her new republic, she realized the only way for to be successful was to pull out all the stops and push the edge as far as possible. To be successful, _ping ming_ was the only way to go.

She wanted to make the hearts of people back in the Core bleed buttermilk for those poor, poor oppressed people, to regret every action the Alliance took, and to question the wisdom of attacking those poor innocents who just wanted to live their lives without meddling.

"And the children are photogenic enough?" she asked, a tad anxiously. She had rounded up just about every brat on Deadwood at the time, including a few kids that were brought along by those flying in from all points to join up the newly created Republic.

She had even convinced the newly ranked Commander Zoe Washburne, recently appointed in charge of one of the first squadrons of the Republic Space Fleet, to sit with the children and hold her very young son while they filmed the children playing.

"_Duhn ruhn_," he affirmed. "You definitely found the cutest kids for this."

_But not the best behaved_, she reflected sourly. Even with the firm hand of Commander Washburne, it had taken a while. The filming had taken most of a day, over a course of more than twenty takes, as almost every take a different _nyen ching-duh_ would start crying or squabbling, which would set off all the others, and they would all need to be calmed down, and the whole thing would have to be set up all over again.

Petaline had been there, carefully keeping an eye on Jonah as he toddled about on unsteady legs. She ruined almost as many takes as the babies, since she would often rush into the group of kids to pick up Jonah whenever he fell down on his diapered behind. Belinda had been teething that day, and wouldn't stop screaming even for a thiry second take. Mrs. Burgess wisely made sure Chari kept her inside.

They had filmed in front of one of the nicest houses in the area, most of the greenery and fertile farmscape added in later, post-production. The graphics had been added in by a young computer engineer named Peter MacKenzie. He had been an intern at an advertisement company back in the Core.

While there he had found out about some illegal advertising tactics the company was using involving subliminal messaging and when he tried to blow the whistle on them, found himself with a bounty on his head because it turned out the advertising company had been working with the complicity of the Alliance, and the poor boy, who had only wanted to do what was _right_, had been forced to run for the Rim just as fast as he could.

Mrs. Burgess had found him through a network she had quickly set up to seek out talented professionals of all trades living out in the Rim, no matter what their history. He had been working a bar on New Omaha, serving drinks and in charge of changing the graphics on the sign outside that advertised "Barney's Finest Drinks." Peter was _profoundly_ grateful to now be working for the Republic and Mrs. Burgess.

She was doubly pleased to have gotten some with talent along with information on more crimes that could be laid at the feet of the Alliance

Mrs. Burgess had quite a number of people with similar histories working for her now. She gloated quietly each and every time she managed to poach someone with Alliance training and get them working for her – doctors, lawyers, engineers, nurses, soldiers, journalists, architects, cooks, etc., all treated badly by the very government that had once been willing to work for, and now all too willing to work against.

They were people often overlooked, and dangerous by virtue of that very same overlooked status. She considered one of her best new acquisitions to be a medium sized family owned catering company for two reasons: from the dawn of time, the maxim held true – behold, an army marches on a stomach. Also, whoever paid attention to the caterers at fancy events? She had immediately put most of them to work organizing the logistics of making sure all her new recruits got fed, and a trusted few spying back in the Core.

"We play this right, this'll go down in the history vids as the War of Words, rather than another war of worlds," Peter quipped now.

She smiled at him. "So nice to work with people who can keep up," she told him sincerely. He was a good kid, she reflected. Smart as a whip and intensely loyal, someone who wouldn't and couldn't go back to the Core – in a word, perfect.

"Let's see the final draft of the next one," she went on brusquely.

He played the next pro-Republic commercial for her, this one featuring footage of the most picturesque, innocent and decent places along the Rim and in the Border: shots of waves of grain on little farms, of wind farm technicians hard at work on a craggy, windy moon, of a greenhouse filled with bright plants on a cold looking colony, of fishermen toiling with nets as they sailed across rough seas on a water planet, and a rancher rounding up cattle along a dusty prairie.

"Good," she said. "Give it the green for go and send it out to the broadcast people we've got set up on Mycroft moon and tell them to make sure its playing on fifty worlds by tomorrow morning."

"_Jing chai_," he said happily, the sound of artist glad to be getting recognition. "And," he said coyly, "I have a new one for you." He clicked away at the console and a new series of rather raw vid footage began to play, each part showing a different person in a different setting looking straight at the camera.

"I'm from Hera, and I support the Republic."

"I'm from Santo, and I support the Republic."

"I'm from Osiris, and I support the Republic."

"I'm from Freya, and I support the Republic."

"I'm from St. Albans, and I support the Republic."

"I'm from Mir, and I support the Republic."

There were several more; Mrs. Burgess turned down the volume as they flickered on. "You added in Core planets too?" she asked, no infliction in her tone as she waited to hear what he would say.

"See, they said 'support' not 'joined'," he said gleefully, "The aim being to suggest it's not just an 'us vs. them' issue, but rather a distant cause you're not a part of, but still support, like, you know, girl scouts. I've been doing a lot of research on 19th and 20th century propaganda attached to similar situations back on Earth-that-Was, and this tactic definitely has a success rate to it."

She smiled. "Good work." She got up and got ready to leave. "Keep it up – I'll be back in a few days to see how that money one is coming along." She was referring to the in process broadcast that listed the cost of the old war in terms of the average civilian's taxes, layoffs, and depravation of goods. If sentiment didn't get people – then money surely would.

She left the dark workshop, blinking as she stepped back out into the afternoon sunlight, and, getting on her horse, headed down the busy streets, back to her house. Deadwood's main settlement was certainly bustling these days, with people from all over the Rim and Border coming to meet here, and more arriving every day, some loaded down with supplies, others with just the clothes on their backs. Many were volunteers; some had been recruited through her networks, like Peter.

She smiled, thinking back on the greatest poaching job of all, one that had taken no work on her part….

The little girl had simply walked into her parlor one day where Mrs. Burgess had been reviewing files of people she was considering delegating work to, people, who, if this whole mad venture was successful, would eventually become the proto-government of the Republic.

The girl was the pilot from one of the ships that had landed that day bringing quite a lot of excitement, having just survived a hostile encounter with an Alliance patrol, which meant she as going to have to set up a border patrol system of her own, as well as bringing the excitement of the ship's mate having gone into labor as the ships landed on Deadwood. Her little moon's already burgeoning population was about to get one more.

"And what can I do for Captain Reynolds's pilot?" Mrs. Burgess asked calmly. It had been a surprisingly effective policy to never show surprise no matter what happened.

"I'm your new spymaster," the girl announced.

"Oh?" she said, letting a little amusement slip into her tone.

"You are the lesser of two evils," the girl said bluntly.

Caroline looked her up and down, and then said coolly, "Flattery will get you no where."

"Truth, not flattery. You don't pave paths of good intentions that lead millions down to hell – you just want to run an ordered house."

Caroline smiled wryly – if it was if the girl read her thoughts; it was true she was finding that the running a household and running a government had quite a lot in common. "Considering how bad other types have done as leaders, I see nothing wrong with a _hausfrau_ in charge of things."

"The type doesn't matter – school teachers, artists, farmers, engineers; anyone can take charge – the important part is what you do with power."

"And why do you qualify?"

River threw a packet of papers on the desk. Caroline picked them up and flipped though them. "These look classified," she said, shocked enough that surprise leaked into her voice.

She saw plans for the Alliance network defense grid for what looked like most of the Core planets and took in deep breath to steady herself. "_Rung txe fwo txoo bao yo wuo muhm_," she swore. "These _are_ classified. Very classified," she corrected herself. She looked up at the little girl standing there, innocent as daises and cream, and a look of new respect came into the chairwoman's eyes. "How did you get these?"

The little girl smiled. It was not a nice smile. "I was supposed to be a dog of war for the Alliance. They were very upset that their prized show dog got away," she sneered. "I had to dispatch a few dog catchers who tired to pursue. But I didn't forget what my handlers taught me." She frowned. "Couldn't." She took a steadying breath. "And she- _I_ want more than freedom." She paused.

"What do you want?" asked Mrs. Burgess curiously, sensing something of a kindred spirit. A girl – a woman – held back by a patriarchy and suddenly free to pursuer her own course, and damn the torpedoes.

"To teach the leash holders a lesson," she said with clear enunciation.

As she rode along Caroline reflected that the girl had kept her word.

The girl, River, had first suggested placements for her crew, of where they could do the most good. Caroline followed the suggestions and kept a sharp eye on all of them, to see how they did. The girl's suggestions proved to be invaluable.

The merc, Jayne Cobb, was appointed Master-at-Arms (the girl has stipulated the man must be given a title and hat to get the best response from him) and he was placed in charge of training young recruits, turning quite a few former civilians, boys and girls who'd used their hands to wash laundry and pull weeds, into crack shots with a gun in their hands. He constantly sent requests for more arms and ammunition to the armory set up on Artemisia, as well as sending out notice to quite a few mercenaries he knew of who would leap at the chance to take pot shots at the Alliance.

Malcolm Reynolds and Zoe Washburne were both in placed in charge of large sections of the beginnings of their volunteer army, bringing organization to the initially unruly crowd, bringing hard won experience and common sense to the table. A few people grumbled about their commander having a baby in tow, grumblings Caroline had vigorously smothered.

On the girl's advice, Caroline sent Malcolm Reynolds to organize the outpost set up on Ithaca, one of the first Border worlds to declare for the Republic. She suspected, given what she had heard about him, that it was a risk, but she decided to gamble on the cheeky veteran managing to convince Border that the Rim folk were earnest in their cause, and not just a bunch of foolish yokels.

Also, Inara Serra, one of her main ambassadors in the remarkably successful 'Tea and Talk' campaign, was near there, and from what she had heard about _them_, she suspected they'd be glad to be working nearby, especially if they thought it was just by coincidence.

The girl's brother, Dr. Simon Tam, was made head surgeon of the newly re-activated mobile hospital, the RSS Hippolyta, kept in the air largely by the efforts of his fiancé, Kaylee Frye, chief engineer of the ship.

Caroline found herself often consulting the girl on who would work best together. While Caroline knew what talents people had, she knew that to ignore a potential clash of personalities could be a fatal mistake.

As she rode along back to her home a few people waved at her and she waved back. "God bless you, _Jóngsè__ Huangdi_," someone called out and she smiled.

People on both sides – the Alliance and the Republic, had taken to calling her _Jóngsè__ Huangdi – _the Red Queen, both because of her unabashedly forceful attitude and the red outfits she often wore for rallies, especially the elaborate red gown wore she had worn in the 'Freedom' speech that was being re-played all over the 'verse, where she had quoted just about every orator who'd ever been in charge of an army, from Gorgo to Elizabeth I to Lincoln to Jingwei to Churchill to Xiaoshuang.

She had given Chari the task of doing most of the work on that particular gown to make sure the girl was kept busy whenever the baby was sleeping. She specified making it bright red, red for luck, for new beginnings, for unity, for the anger the people felt for being betrayed by the Alliance, red for sacrifice, for courage and red for a success.

When she got back home there was the usual crowd of people waiting for her council and delegations. When she was finished with that, most of it simply telling people what they already knew but wanted to be told anyway, she made her way to the nursery.

Little Belinda was on a fairly regular sleep schedule now, and Caroline would try and work her schedule around when her daughter would be awake, feed, and changed. She would occasionally help in giving the child her bath, but most often simply played with her – delighting in anything, a toy, a rattle, a song, that would make Belinda smile and gurgle baby laughs.

Caroline walked into the nursery where Chari was breastfeeding. Caroline tried to ignore the fact that the young mother and child could have been posing for a painting of the Madonna and baby Christ. Chari's hair had grown long again, but she now kept it sensibly tucked back in a neat braid.

Caroline had noted that the final months of her new indenture would be up soon, but Chari was speaking less and less about her plans for leaving Deadwood.

"It's time to start weaning her," said Caroline flatly.

"Oh!" exclaimed Chari in surprise. "I… didn't realize it was time for that already," she said a bit uneasily. She gazed down on the baby tenderly.

Caroline looked at Chari with cool appraisl. "You want what's best for the baby, don't you?" she asked in her most reasonable tone.

"Yes'm," said Chari quickly, "It's just… I think it's good for her to be close to me. Comforting. The bottles seem so impersonal. And babies need comforting, right ma'm?"

"True," said Caroline neutrally.

Chari's eyes never left Belinda's little face. Caroline's own face was a mask of politeness as she considered the best way to implement the next stage of her plans. It was true running a household and running a government were quite similar.

*

*

*

************************************

**Translations**

_Yee err san, _

_Pá__ dà shân_

_see woo lieu, _

_Jir dee zayǔ,_

_chee… gah… __**BIEU**__! _

One two three,

Climb the mountain,

Four five six,

Its going to rain,

Seven eight _**NINE**_!

_Kuan Yin_ - Chinese goddess of compassion and fertility

_Nyen ching-duh_ - Youngling

_Ping ming_ - Go all out, take out all the stops

_Duhn ruhn_ - Of course

_Rung txe fwo txoo bao yo wuo muhm – _Merciful Buddha protect us

_Jing chai_ - Brilliant

_Jóngsè__ Huangdi – _Red Queen

Also:

_Hausfrau – _German for 'house wife', tends to be used condescendingly in English


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer:** Don't own Firefly or Serenity. Just playing in Joss's sandbox.

**Author's note:** Yes, the slave trader quotes rules #34 and #35 from the Star Trek Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. (My personal favorite is #235: "Duck! Death is tall!")

* * *

**Heart of Stone**

**Chapter Thirteen**

The _Jóngsè__ Huangdi_, Chairwoman of the new Republic, sat in the ready room on board _Queen's Gambit_, the fleet's flagship. She was revising the speech she had to make in a few hours when they landed on Alberich where she would be speaking in their capital of Wagnerberg to assure the newest member world of the Republic that she was looking out for their best interests.

There was a knock at the door.

"Enter," Mrs. Burgess said in her best authoritative voice, expecting her recently appointed members of the newly created Ministry of Commerce with drawn up trade agreements she was trying to make with several large businesses back in the Core.

She had an agreement with five generation old jeweler store chain in the Core looking to buy raw diamonds from previously un-mined Rim moons that just needed her counter signature.

She had almost been appalled to see weapon manufacturers practically tripping over their own feet in their haste to offer her the opportunity to buy their finest weaponry and armament. Under the table, of course.

She gave the opportunity some serious thought, but in the end decided she wanted everything as much as possible to happen above board. It would important to show the 'verse that her Republic was going to be a serious and legitimate political entity – not some street gang or illegal rebellion that skulked in darkness and operated underground.

There was currently a deal being finalized with a publishing company from Persephone. That world was still waffling about which way to go, but the printers there were looking to set up shops in other Border worlds that already declared for the Republic, knowing a young government needed flyers, pamphlets, broadsheets and books to get the word out. She was also working on negotiating a deal to sell home made furniture made on Brunhilde to markets in the Core.

She was pushing to make trade agreements like these happen as fast as possible between Core, Border and Rim, regardless of anyone's political status – the more people working with the Republic, the harder it would be for the Alliance to object without getting its own constituents upset – not that they weren't already.

Along with her own propaganda, she was still playing footage of Miranda, adding facts to the video about nasty things the Alliance had done, all dug up but her trusty spymaster.

Caroline looked up from her paperwork as the door opened. A young man with a gun aimed straight at her heart burst through the door. He was dressed nondescriptly in a loose tunic and pants, his eyes blank as two coals, his face hard and determined.

_I am going to die_, was her immediate thought. _Ai yah Tien ah._ She felt a surge of anger that she was about to be forced to be shuffled off, when there was still so much work left to do, and she was not best pleased at the thought of meeting Rance again.

Before her thought process could get any farther than that, the man's torso jerked and he spun around involuntary, revealing the tiny figure of River behind him, leg still extended from the kick she had just given him. The next kick knocked the gun from his hand and the two began fighting hand-to-hand, almost becoming two blurs as they locked in combat.

Kicks, blows, thrusts and spins were exchanged between the two, almost looking like a dance as they competed fiercely for physical dominance in the tight space.

For a moment it looked like the man was getting the upper hand, but River managed to side swipe him with a very hard kick to his right leg that caused an ominous crunching noise, loud in the small cabin where the two combatants had been eerily silent as they fought. The assassin collapsed on the floor in front of Caroline as his leg went out beneath him and his face went ashy grey with pain.

Caroline was still drawing breath to call for security, but it was already over, River standing over the prostrate assassin, panting slightly.

"Hello River," Caroline said in as bland a voice as she could maintain, taking a deep breath to keep herself steady. She ordered herself to get under control, trying to force her flight or fight response to stand down.

River gave a curt nod, her eyes locked on the man who was wincing silently in pain, her own expression as hard as a diamond.

"Well…" said Caroline, trying to collect her thoughts. "Ah, do you have more information for me on the Alliance we can use to convince the citizens of Alberich they made the right decision?" she managed to ask calmly, as if this was just another briefing meeting.

River shook her head 'no,' still looking down at the man she had just defeated. Her hair was hanging loose. Although lately she had taken to tying it into intricate braids pinned up to crown her head.

She looked up, hair swaying. "I'm sorry I let him get so far," she apologized, her eyes hard. She gave the prostrate man another kick for good measure. The little spy then placed her arms behind her back and stood at parade rest as she questioned, "What would you have me _do_ with him, lady?" She sounded like her blood was still up; she seemed eager for the next order.

Caroline drew a breath and the words 'shove him out the air lock' hovered on her lips for a moment. She let out her breath as she dismissed the desire for immediate indulgent violence. Their must be a better use for him then just turning him into space trash.

She considered, and dismissed, a public execution. While it would show everyone that she meant business, the possible political ramifications, whether or not the Alliance acknowledged the existence of their assassin, could easily blow up in her face.

She put on her coldest mask and leaned down to glare at the man at her feet.

"So, they tried to bury us in bureaucratic paperwork," she told him brusquely, like a teacher scolding a student for failing an easy test, "but we kicked the bureaucrats out. They tried to send their "peacekeeping" forces, but we made them breathe tainted air, just as they had forced those of our own to breath their wretched concoction. And now… now they send an assassin." She paused and asked coldly. "Why?"

"What?" spluttered the man through his pain, clearly surprised at the question.

"Why did they send you to kill me?" she repeated slowly. "Surely you are not some _tian di wu yohn_ cannon fodder infantry soldier to simply take an order without knowing the why behind it," she mocked. "So, I want to hear, out loud, why my death was considered necessary."

River chose that moment to stomp down hard in her combat boots on his kidneys.

"They are scared of you," grunted the man, a spasm of new pain dancing across his face.

"Scared?" Caroline asked in the same mocking tone. "Of a little old widow like me just trying to make her way in a cold 'verse?"

"They're scared because you make it look easy," he grimaced.

She smiled. "Rule number two – never let them see you sweat," she murmured, more to herself than to him, then questioned him again, "So why not during the rally? A public assassination? There'd be a lot of confusion and noise there; the perfect occasion, really." She turned slightly: "River, make a note to have my security beefed up at all future public speaking engagements," she said, as if telling the girl to remember to pick up milk at the store.

"They didn't want to risk turning you into a martyr and having the public rallying around that. That just wanted you to… disappear," said the assassin. He got enough of his composure back, even while lying on the floor, to sneer up at her, "Trust me, after you kill me, they will simply send another."

Caroline smiled broadly, leaned down, and said with bright eyed enthusiasm, "Who said anything about killing you?"

* * *

"I just spent six hours in surgery-" began Simon heatedly, still in a surgery coat with blood on the front as he stood in the Chairwoman's onboard office.

"And you were marvelous, as always," interrupted Caroline in a soothing tone.

"And," snapped Simon, not mollified, clearly building up a full head of steam as he ranted on while tearing off his surgery gloves, "I still haven't been told just why you deemed it necessary to hail the _Hippolyta_, insist we change course and intercept our course with yours with all speed, despite the many, many other things on both our schedules."

He paused to throw his gloves in the bin by her desk, and then went back to a speech he had clearly been rehearsing in his head while in surgery:

"And as soon as we are docked you and my sister," he nodded to where River stood in the doorway, like a centurion on duty, "the two of you present me with a man bleeding, beat up, unconscious, and with his left patella, tibia, and femur bones broken as well as the lateral meniscus ligament torn completely in two, and you demand that I 'fix him up,' as you so blithely put it, and yet refuse to tell me what's going on!"

Caroline let a beat pass to see if he was done. When he added nothing else she blandly said, "All of that is true."

She paused, weighing her options, then plunged ahead, "You strike me as someone who finds the truth a refreshing novelty, so hear it is: the man whose leg you just saved tried to kill me earlier today, but was foiled in his little attempt by your darling little sister."

Simon blinked, nonplused.

She grinned without humor, "The Alliance sent me an assassin as a little joke on their part. Funny as hell, yes?"

"He's an assassin?" Simon asked, goggled eyed in shock.

"You're sister assured me you were smart. Please try to keep up," she admonished him.

"And you _wanted_ him with all of his facilities to stay in order?" asked Simon, less stunned as he pulled himself together, but still sounding surprised.

"I believe he will have his uses. Of course he'll need some proper rehabilitation after that surgery."

"_Duh ruhn_," said Simon dryly. "And how, exactly, do you propose to do that?"

"First, he'll need a nice long rest. I am sending him to the Heart of Gold to recuperate. Just keep him sedated until we get there."

Simon pinched the bridge of his nose. "_Whai wrin bu jwo_," he muttered in exasperation. "I… am going to go lie down," he announced to no one in particular. "And I am going to try very hard not to think about how crazy my life has gotten."

"Kaylee is in the canteen back on the Hippolyta," piped up River. "She just re-routed the entire air pressuration system to prevent everyone in the recovery ward from asphyxiating tonight. She'll probably give you a back rub if you tell her what a good she did," suggested River.

"I don't need dating advice from you," he told in her mock-offended big brother tones, clearly getting back his equilibrium.

River grinned at him, entirely the naughty little sister, not at all like the practiced fighter who had just taken down a man twice her size.

Later, after the rally, after the meeting with leaders on Alberich, after getting back on _Queen's Gambit_ and heading back to Liberty, accompanied by several ships in the Republic's fleet, after a briefing with high ranking members of the fleet, and after a meeting with several of her council members where the debate continued on which world would be the best place to declare their new capital, she had a very quiet debriefing with River.

"The assassination attempt is proof positive that the Alliance is on the move. You got what you wanted – as he said, they are _scared_ of you." River's voice was flat, neither approving nor disapproving.

"This is good," said Caroline firmly. "Scared people make mistakes. Mistakes like this."

River absently stretched a leg behind her and hummed under her breath for a moment before replying, "Mistakes can mean death."

"Thiers or ours?" Sometimes when she was speaking to her, Caroline felt as though she was consulting the Oracle of Delphi or some other sort of ancient pagan prophetess.

River tilted her head to the side, looking younger as she did. "You keep saying there is no 'us verses them'. Be careful not to trip on your own lies," she lectured.

"Thank you, mistress spy," said Caroline dryly. "To stay on point, what does your spy network tell you about the Alliance's movements now? More assassins?"

"Most likely. Also, they don't want to waste time using the same wooing tactics as you. They have plans to use force in order to remind people that the Alliance owns them."

"The Alliance is behind the times," smirked Caroline, pleased.

* * *

So Caroline was not entirely surprised when, a week later, one of her younger council members burst into her study, looking as though she was in love.

"Oh, Madame, such news!" she declared happily, practically in raptures. "Wondrous news, fantastic news, the very best news! Oh Madame Chairwoman! Who would have thought? Oh Madame, Madame!"

"Yes?" she asked calmly. "News?" she prompted.

"It's Ezra!" the young politician exclaimed.

"Ezra?" asked Carline, trying not to sound too expectant about that resource-rich planet. She had been making overtures since the beginning that it would be profitable for that most self-sufficient of worlds to join in.

"Ezra! Can you believe it? We got Ezra! The Alliance pushed Ezra straight into our arms! We got Ezra! I just received their communiqué formally asking for permission to join the Republic! The Alliance just tried to _attack_ them today! A 'landing of peacekeeping forces' the purplebellies called that _bie woo long_," she scoffed, "but Ezra, _duh ruhn,_ sicced their private fleet on them and sent them all running!" The girl paused to catch her breath. "Do you want to Wave them back?" she asked, trying to sound formula, but still excited at this dramatic turn of events.

"Call everyone who is either on Liberty now or in immediate air space," Caroline ordered. "Tell them there will be a public assembly tonight. I will Wave back to graciously accept Ezra to our Republic." Caroline tried not to grin like a fool, tried not to let herself get too carried away with the implications of this, reminded herself that, yes, this probably meant that war could be averted and the Republic was well and truly legitimate, but there was still a lot of work to be done. Her eyes fell on her To Do list and one item in particular jumped out at her. She had a loose end to tie up.

* * *

Chari knocked politely on the door as she entered the parlor.

Caroline Burgess stood next to a wiry, middle aged man. The Chairwoman of the Republic was dressed in an afternoon dress, a stack of papers on her desk. The man was dressed in traveling leathers, clearly having either just arrived or just about to leave. He did not look like he was there for the now week long celebrations that looked like they weren't ending anytime soon to celebrate the official ratification of the Republic's government.

"You sent for me, Madame?" Chari asked. They both turned to look at her.

"There she is, just as I showed you in the captures I sent," said Caroline, addressing the man.

"Yeah, pretty as her picture," he agreed. "And she'll live up to her work description I hope?"

"You can have no doubts on _that _score," she reassured him. Neither took their eyes off of Chari as they talked to each other, like two cats eyeing a mouse.

"Madame?" asked Chari nervously, a little quiver in her voice betraying her nervousness at their words.

"Chari," said Caroline briskly, "this is Frank Randall, your new owner. He has just bought your indenture contract from me. You'll be going with him when he goes off world in," she casually looked at her watch, "about fifteen minutes."

"Yeah," drawled Randall, looking her up and down with hooded eyes, "she looks like she'll do fine. I reckon I'll get some good work out of her over the next couple years."

"But… but…" stammered Chari, "I'm almost done with my indenture! I signed that new contract, we agreed!"

Caroline smiled coldly as she pulled a sheaf of papers from her desk. "These? Stupid child, you were already bought and under strict contract; _property_ can't sign agreements. It's clearly stated in the original papers you signed, section five, paragraph g, that you were unable to sign any new contracts while still indentured to me, including new indenture terms. This new contract is worthless."

Caroline tossed the papers that would have given Chari early freedom into the fireplace and went on briskly: "I owned you, I signed your bond papers over to Randall, and now Randall owns you."

"But you promised!" wailed Chari, like a child denied a treat, as the contract went up in smoke.

Caroline shrugged her shoulders casually. "I lied."

"Lied? But- but-" Chari stuttered in shocked protest, still trying to deny the way things were headed.

"Silly girl," sneered Caroline harshly. "Your contract states that I am legal guardian to you and any children you might have while bonded to me, executor of all legal and medical decisions pertaining to you and yours. The baby was already mine - I just wanted to make sure you handed her without a fuss. You really should read things before you sign them, Chari."

Chari stared at her, mouth agape, shell-shocked.

Another cold smile crept onto Caroline's face as she went on, "I would have promised you _anything_, you _jien hwo_. You were a fool then to believe me, and you are a fool now to think you have any say over your fate. You'll go with Randall, who was more than happy to hear about your prior work experience. He specializes in finding new bond owners for girls with your type of… qualifications."

Randall smiled, enjoying the show.

Chari's eyes widened as she realized the implications of that. "Madame, please!" she burst out as the shock waves finally hit. She literally threw herself at Caroline's feet, clutching her skirts as she begged piteously: "Please don't do this! Have a heart, please, Madame don't do this to me, please! Please, for the love of God, I gave you my baby!" she pleaded.

Caroline frowned down at her. "Belinda is mine. The child is mine legally, always was, always will be, so don't try and make _me_ feel ungrateful with some foolish notion of honor or some such nonsense, you_ da sha gua_."

"But… you were so nice to me," said Chari in a bewildered voice, tears spilling down her checks, clearly overwhelmed with the rapid turn of events.

Caroline narrowed her eyes at the girl crying at her feet, disgusted at her stupidity. "I treat my breeding stock right, because of what they can provide," she said coldly. "And now, since you are no longer useful to me, I'm trading you for something I can use."

"I… I can be useful! I can help here with the war effort!" Chari tried to plead.

"In case you haven't noticed, we're a little overrun with volunteers these days," said Caroline, allowing herself to smirk at the coup of getting nearly all of the Rim and Border worlds to rally under her flag.

"People will notice I'm gone!" protested Chari, clutching at straws as she clutched Caroline's skirts. "People will wonder why I'm gone a sudden-"

"And why would they do that?" Caroline interrupted, "When I've been telling people for the last few weeks how you're getting ready to leave with your indenture payment to try your luck at the gaming tables on Pelarum?"

Chari stared up at her, mouth agape.

Caroline leaned over and said to her in a confidential tone, "I'll be honest with you, girl. _You are in my way_. Things are going much farther than ever I imagined possible, and the way things are headed, who knows how far I can take this? And an adopted orphan foundling I choose to raise makes for much better PR than some whore's brat I bought."

"Perhaps it's a little early to think of the history books," went on Caroline confidentially, "but still, it's best to erase you early on. A few years time, no one will remember you, especially when I move to wherever we establish the Republic's capital. _Fahn-shai_, I'm establishing a dynasty here – this child will go on to heights you couldn't even dream of."

She straightened up. "Besides," she went on briskly, "war or no war, commerce must continue." She brusquely wrenched Chari to a standing position by pulling her up by one arm.

"My old man used to say 'War is good for business, peace is good for business,' " said Randall philosophically.

Caroline turned to the slaver. "Remember, I want her as far away as possible."

Randall chuckled. "No worries about that, ma'm, I've got a buyer in mind on the other side of the Rim."

He pulled a metal collar from his satchel. Slave collars were used when an owner was worried about an indentured servant running off, or when someone was just plain sadistic. The thin strip of metal had both a locator and an electoral conductor embedded in it. Collared slaves could be easily tracked and punitive shocks could be administered by whoever held the control. Sometimes owners would use collars made to resemble cruel parodies of fancy jeweled necklaces to grace the throats of their personal pretty play things.

"No," said Chari, shaking her head in stunned disbelief as she stared at the collar. "No." She took a tentative step backwards towards the door, despite the fact that Caroline still had one had on her arm.

"Hold her," grunted Randall as he fumbled the lock open. Caroline clamped both of her hands onto the girl's arms and gripped her tightly, her fingers clasped onto Chari's forearms in an iron grip.

"No, no, no, no, no," the girl continued to cry as Randall snapped the collar around her throat, and then quickly ran his hands clinically over her body to do a quick health check. He stuck his fingers in her mouth to open her jaws wide enough to do a spot check on the state of her teeth, forcing her to practically gag on her own cries. Satisfied, he drew out a hypodermic and sunk the needle deep into her neck.

"My baby," she whispered piteously before she sank into unconsciousness.

"I would have drugged her beforehand," mentioned Caroline off handedly as the slaver prepped the unconscious Chari for transport. "But I had her finishing breastfeeding up to the last minute and I didn't want the drugs to affect my daughter."

"Very wise of you ma'm," said the slaver politely, "It's no skin off my nose – I always carry a nice supply of sleepy-time for when I'm in a position of _labor negotiations_ with my workers."

"Well, good day sir," she said to him, her mind already moving onwards to tasks left undone, but glad to have this business taken care off.

He tipped his hat polity, "You have a nice day now, ma'm. And good luck with the Republic. My business has been up these days."  
"_Yi lu shwen fohn_," she bided him goodbye pleasantly as she closed the door behind him. There was work to be done. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day.

* * *

**Translations**

_Jóngsè__ Huangdi – _Red Queen

_Tian di Wu Yohn_ – Completely useless

_Duhn ruhn_ - Of course

_Whai Wrin Bu Jwo_ – Things never go smooth

_Bie Woo Long_ – Blunder of great magnitude

_jien hwo_ - Cheap floozy

_Fahn-shai_ - Don't worry.

_Yi lu shwen fohn_ - Good journey

_da sha gua_ - fool, idiot

_Ai Yah Tien_ _Ah _- Merciless hell

_Rung txe fwo txoo bao yo wuo muhm – _Merciful Buddha protect us

_Jing chai_ - Brilliant

_Joo how rin_ – Good luck


End file.
